Actions Speak Louder than Words
by TT92
Summary: The team is sent on a case to South Dakota where they must deal with a series of abductions and beatings. However, they learn that there is much they have to deal with on the inside. Reid Centric mostly. ReidJJ towards the end. Post Jones. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

Monday morning at the FBI Quantico headquarters was much like Monday morning at any other workplace. Employees stumbled in, groggy and still excited over there weekend adventures.

As agent Dr. Spencer Reid walked into the bullpen of the behavioral analysis unit, he knew that the actions of the last case in New Orleans were not forgotten. He had skipped a flight out to Texas purposely, and lied about it later. Only Gideon knew about what Reid had said about not missing planes anymore. The entire plane ride home Reid had kept quiet, processing everything that had happened recently.

Memories began to float in and out of his brain. The strongest of those were coming from night that he was held captive by Tobias Hankel, a man with multiple personalities, two of which wanted Reid dead. The other decided instead to fill him with Dilaudid, prescription heroin.

'Don't think about that night.' He thought to himself sternly. When his mind began to go to memories of the three weeks he had taken off or of the other night, however, Reid could no longer distinguish which memories hurt worst of all. 'Concentrate on work, concentrate on work.' He commanded himself as he felt a shudder move down his back.

He saw his best friend, Derek Morgan, talking to the newest member of the BAU family, agent Emily Prentiss. They were the only two there, and it made Reid uncomfortable. Emily especially had a reason to be angry at him. Reid had taken way too many of his frustrations out on her in the last few weeks. Only lately had anyone else picked up on it too, including Morgan. Reid knew he was going to have to tread carefully.

"Hey guys," he said as normally as he could. Morgan nodded a small hello while Emily only returned a cold look.

'Well, I deserve that.' He thought to himself bitterly. He was entertaining the notion of telling them about the promise he had made to Gideon. He opened his mouth to begin when JJ came out into the bullpen.

"Hey guys, a new case just came in. Hotch and Gideon are already there." She told them quickly. The three other agents followed her quickly.

In the conference room, files were spread out at the head of the table. Hotch and Gideon were comparing them and sharing ideas or notes. When they recognized the presence of the others, Hotch nodded his head, alerting JJ to being her presentation.

"Okay, this case is very different. Last night a girl walked into a Subway in Watertown, South Dakota telling the cashier that she had been abducted. The cashier called the police and they began to question her. She told them the location of the abandoned building she was held in, and the local authorities searched it. They found four more girls. These girls were beaten severely and heavily drugged. However, the unsub was gone and he left no evidence of himself." JJ began.

"How are the other girls now?" Morgan asked.

"Not good. Two slipped into a coma and the other two are unconscious and in critical condition." Hotch said.

"What about the girl who go away? How did she manage it?" Reid asked, clearly amazed. One of five girls escaping? It seemed quite odd especially because it was probable that the unsub was working in a very similar way.

"They don't know yet, but according to early reports, it looked like she was drugged as well because she had no defensive wounds. However, she might have been drugged with something different, something that didn't work as the unsub planned." Hotch answered.

"Do they believe he's going to attack again?" Emily asked.

"They don't know currently. Because of the fact that he has been taking a girl a day, it appears he might soon. However, he has not made a threat to attack again." JJ answered.

"Why didn't they call us if they thought they had serial kidnapping?" Emily inquired.

"The parents reported it to different police. These victims are associated with two different towns. Because of this, each force thought there were only two missing girls instead of four." Hotch said.

"What's the connection between the victims?" Morgan inquired.

"That's just it," JJ said. "There doesn't appear to be one. First we have Corra Nonnas. 18, senior at Lakewood High school in Lakewood, a little town about a half hour from Watertown," as JJ said this, the crime scene picture appeared on the projection screen behind JJ.

Reid was amazed at the extent of her injuries. Bruises and gashes covered her body; it was a miracle she survived.

"Next," JJ continued. "Haley Siverons. 16, junior at Campton High School in Campton, Minnesota. Although that's farther away that Lakewood, it's still very close. Next Ginger Hevern. 17, junior at Lakewood. Rachel Johnson, 13. She's only a seventh grader at Campton." JJ finished quietly.

Reid could by now that they were most likely dealing with a white, older male who went after girls who were around the teenage age. He noticed that Rachel probably looked older than 13, which is how she became the target of the unsub.

"And finally, Kristy Aden. She was the one who went to the Subway. She's 14 and a freshman at Lakewood." JJ concluded. "Their injuries included what appears to be severe physical beatings. There does not appear to be any sexual injuries at this time, implying that there was no sexual motive."

"Varying age group could imply that he chooses his victims at random. He might not know them, or at least not very well. Because they all appear to be close to the same age, he might consider them all to be the same age." Reid chipped in.

They all did appear to be the same age. While Corra, Haley, and Ginger all had the faces of 17 or 18 year olds, Rachel and Kristy looked older because they were taller. Of course, Reid had assumed most of this. The crime scene photos, other than Kristy's, showed so much injury that this was harder to guess.

While Hotch looked as if he agreed, Gideon shook his head.

"These towns are so small that it's hard for him not to know them. Lakewood has less than 1,300 people and Campton has just under 2,000." Gideon declared.

"We'll need to talk to Kristy and the others when they wake up." Hotch stated.

Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.

"Plane's taking off in 40 minutes." Hotch commanded.

"Pack warmly. South Dakota was just ravaged by a storm." Gideon added.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Okay, because I forgot this last time, let me state that I do not own Criminal Minds, or the characters involved. I just make them bend to my will in my free time.

Reid hurried home to pack. He was praying this case would go by quickly because he didn't want to be gone long. As he was packing his toiletries, he saw the vials in the medicine cabinet.

'The second one's almost empty.' He thought bitterly to himself. 'I'll have to look into that when we get back.'

It was true; Reid had been using ever since he got back from those horrible days in Georgia. At first it was to wean himself off the drugs, but then it escalated when the withdrawal symptoms were too much for Reid too handle. He took three weeks off when he returned home. By week two, he already had started using them for a high pain threshold.

"Quit thinking about that." He said aloud. Too many thoughts were cluttering his brain. "You need to go to South Dakota and help those girls…"

'South Dakota. 40th state to enter the union, called the Mount Rushmore State, current population around 750,000, wow that's small…'

Reid continued to think of every obscure fact he knew about the little mid-western state while he finished packing every warm article of clothing he had.

The team huddled together on the plane. They were discussing the unique aspects of this case.

"I don't understand why he would keep them if he doesn't do anything with them after the first day." JJ stated. "Corra's bruises show that she had not been beaten for a few days. It appeared that everyday he had a new victim, but he never dumped the others."

"He could have some ritual with the girls. He only wants them for a day." Morgan replied.

"And he must not be able to let them go. He probably let them look at him, and if he did, he couldn't let them go. Some of the early reports show that the girls were hydrated and fed enough to stay alive, so he must have been planning something." Hotch said.

"If he wanted them to see him, this would imply revenge." Reid said. "Of course, that means that there is a higher chance that he knew the victims and that they possibly knew him. He wants control over them, control he didn't have, leading him to take the revenge."

"Which means there must be some connection between the victims. They would all have come into contact with the unsub." Emily said.

"Because of the fact that they were all drugged, he most likely is not physically able to restrain them. He is probably an older, most likely white based on the region we're entering, and does not have a commanding job. He is taking the command he desperately wants by enacting on these girls. Because he has not contacted anyone else, he does not want command over anyone else, just these girls. Their connection will lead us to him." Gideon summed up the discussion.

They landed in Watertown a few hours later. As they arrived, they were greeted by a man who Reid assumed to be the head detective.

"Are you the FBI agents?" Detective Stanten greeted her.

"We are. I'm Agent Jaraeu, we spoke on the phone…" JJ went through her routine of introducing everyone to Detective Stanten.

Reid was only half paying attention. He had been very interested in the scenery and differences of South Dakota compared to Virginia. First off, there was about a foot and a half of snow. Second, everything was very open. Reid remembered this from the desert of Nevada, but the prairie was very different.

"What has been going on the last few hours?" Hotch inquired after the pleasantries ended.

"Nothing much. The tox reports should come back in an hour or two. We have been trying to interview Kristy, but she has not been the most cooperative." Detective Stanten told them.

"Okay. Emily, JJ, why don't you two try to go talk to Kristy. Maybe she'll feel more comfortable talking to women." Hotch ordered, knowing that often female victims often had trouble opening up after an attack due to shame. "Reid and Gideon can head start to interview the families and try to find the connection. Morgan and I will go to the crime scene and look for things there."

Everyone headed out in the direction they were told.

"The girl is down, I'm standing here…what am I doing?" Morgan muttered to himself.

"What is he doing?" Detective Stanten asked. He had offered to go along with Hotch and Morgan to help them around the unfamiliar territory.

"Trying to get in the guy's head. People say that eyes are a window to a person's soul, well crime scenes are often windows into the unsub's head."

"Unsub?" the detective repeated.

"Unknown subject, or the man who did this. It's shorthand that you'll here all of us use." Hotch explained.

"You know this was a man?" detective Stanten inquired.

"Most likely it is. While drugging can be done by both men and women, beatings this severe are usually done by males. Females would more likely do something more passive."

"Detective, did the girl say if she saw anyone?" Morgan suddenly called.

"I'm not for sure." The detective replied.

"You're not for sure? I thought you said you talked to her." Hotch said quickly.

"Well, not me personally. I wasn't called until four this morning. We didn't even call you guys until about six because we had no idea what we were dealing with." The detective replied.

"When did the call come in again?" Hotch asked, trying to figure out the unsub's timeline.

"Around midnight."

"Well, most likely the unsub wasn't around at the time. He would have stopped her, given her something else to stop her from running. He hadn't beaten her, the ritual wasn't completed." Morgan said.

"So what was he doing? He was gone long enough for her to get up, leave, and get help." Hotch said, following Morgan's line of thinking.

"I don't know. But all I can think of is either he started to get cocky and felt he could leave, or he always leaves, and this time he screwed up."

"Which would mean the ritual is not fulfilled," Hotch continued.

"Which would mean he is likely to strike again," Morgan said

"And more violently." Hotch finally concluded.

"How do you know there is a ritual?" Stanten asked, appalled at what he had just heard.

"He always took them to the same place. He took girls that appeared to be the same age. He did it repeatedly with the same number of girls to the same number of days. This all implies that this was part of a ritual that he believes that he must fulfill, and the only way to do this is to commit these crimes." Hotch explained.

"Something's off though." Morgan said. "I'm thinking that this place would be swamped with DNA. He was obviously comfortable, and if he was leaving from being cocky, then he would have thought he couldn't have been caught. But this place is clean, there's nothing. Not even the blood of the girls."

"That is odd. Who worked this last night?" Hotch asked.

"Officer Matt Heiden. You think he screwed something up?" Detective Stanten asked.

"I have no idea, but it is possible. Something's not right. Can we talk to him?" Hotch asked.

"I have no problem with it, but you're going to have to wait. He works with narcotics and helped us out last night by picking up a shift. He had to go undercover today and might not be back for a few days. He could just make the biggest bust of his career. He's going to go places that kid." Detective Stanten said with a smile.

"Well, when he gets back, we'll talk to him. Something could have happened and he didn't know to look for it." Hotch said.

"I'm going to go check out the other rooms." Morgan said turning away.

An hour and a half later, Reid felt exhausted. He had been interviewing the parents of the two girls from Lakewood. Both had insisted that they were good girls who would never be associated with something as terrible as this. The other two families had said the same thing according to Gideon. Nothing useful had been revealed; the girls' parents did not want to say anything bad about their babies. This only meant more work for the BAU team.

'Boy, I really wish I could go home right now.' Reid began to think to himself. 'Then I could take some…'

Reid suddenly sat upright, frightened by his own thoughts. When had he gone from needing the drug for his body to wanting it for his mind? Reid then approached the realization that he had finally achieved the last sign of an addiction; his want for the drug had become stronger than the need.

'I'm an addict. I'm an addict.' Reid thought to himself over and over.

He was so immersed in this thought that when Gideon spoke again, he nearly jumped.

"So, other than they are all victims of the same unsub, what do we have?" Gideon asked.

"Well, uh, they do fairly well in school, are well liked and considered good girls. And they all looked around the same age." Reid replied.

"But what distinguishes them? Many girls fit that profile. Why does the unsub choose them?" Gideon said, not so much asking Reid.

Reid's cell phone rang. He talked on it for a few minutes as Gideon stared at the pictures.

"What is your link?" Gideon asked himself quietly.

"Gideon?" Reid suddenly said. "That was JJ. She wants me to go down to the hospital; they need some help with reading her body language."

"Is she hiding something?" Gideon asked in clear surprise. 

"They aren't sure. JJ said she felt something was off, but they couldn't figure it out." Reid replied.

"Go down. We'll probably end up there sooner or later." Gideon replied. Reid left to head to the hospital.

'What would she hide?' Reid pondered as he walked into the hospital JJ instructed him to go to. 'And why is it so cold here?'

Although he had packed warmly, Reid still felt cold in the 30 degree weather.

"Spence!" she called out when saw him. "A little nippy out there?" She added with a laugh at Reid's shivering.

"I have a new appreciation for the mild winters of Virginia. What's going on now?" he asked her as she approached him.

"Emily's talking to her now. She was very strange at first. When we told her we were cops, she rolled her eyes. However, she always referred to us as Ms. Jareau or Ms. Prentiss." JJ began.

"That could be culture. She could have been raised to say that, and the rolling of the eyes could be related to something else. Who knows?" Reid replied.

"The more we talked to her, the more comfortable and cooperative she was. What was really weird was that she didn't even know there were other victims. Most likely, it's the drug that causing the problems, but something else feels wrong. Emily and I can't figure it out, but maybe you can." JJ said.

"By now, the drug would have worn off. She was able to locate where she was, navigate herself, and seek help. Something else must be wrong. What have you told her?" Reid said.

"She knows there are other victims, but she doesn't know who they are or what happened. You can talk to her. I'm going to talk to the doctors about the other girls and their conditions. Just over there." JJ pointed to a door as she turned and left.

Reid turned around and went over to the room JJ pointed at. He could tell she was from this area. Many people here were of Scandinavian descent, and Kristy's light blond hair and blue eyes didn't hide that. Reid also took notice of the few bruises and scratches she sustained.

Emily noticed Reid's presence and immediately tensed up.

'I'm not going to snap at you in front of a victim.' Reid thought angrily to himself. 'I deserve a little credit.'

"Hey Reid. Kristy, this is Agent Spencer Reid. He's with the FBI too." Emily said.

Reid waved to her. Kristy acknowledged him with a nod of her head. It was obvious that she was incredibly tired. Reid knew he would have to work quickly to get something useful out of her.

"Hi Kristy. Can you tell me what you remember?" Reid asked.

"That seems to be the question of the day." She replied with a sad smile. "I'm going to tell you now that's it not a lot."

"That's okay. There may be something that you would consider unimportant that could make all the difference. What one person can perceive as insignificant, can be perceived by another as their idol. We can't judge what others view as important or unimportant by our own views." Reid said.

Kristy stared at Reid, but it was not the stare Reid had expected. Instead of disbelief or amazement, Reid saw what he almost considered to be understanding on her face.

"You're a genius." She said.

"Technically, yes. I have and IQ of 187." Reid said, not wanting to go over such things again.

Kristy got a smile on her face and Emily got a confused look on her face. Reid assumed that this was different.

"Okay, two things. One, I don't believe in Intelligence Quotient. It is relative to that of one's location which goes though such changes of flux it is a bad idea to judge such a thing by. One can place a child who struggles in school in a third world country and they will be considered a genius. I mean, look at the Spanish culture. They use two different verbs to mean the same thing, to be. However, they use estar to describe location. Ser is used to describe something that is permanent or isn't changed that often. Estar is used to describe something that changes often and is never permanent. Second thing, I said you were a genius, I didn't ask." Kristy stated.

Reid was taken aback. He had heard people talk like this before. Many of the people they had put away were highly intelligent, which was the only way they were able to commit serial acts, but she was a child. 14, Reid remembered. Still bewildered at her statement, he decided to continue with the interrogation.

"You still have not answered my question." He replied.

"Sorry." Kristy said. She then heaved a sigh. "I was walking home from my friend's house. Usually I drive, but my car hasn't been working to well lately. I thought I heard something, but I couldn't see anyone or anything, so I kept walking. Then, I felt something in my neck and then it's blackness. Next thing I know, I'm in this old building laying on the floor. I looked around as my strength was coming back, and I saw the Subway. Then I recognized the road and I realized I was in Watertown."

Reid noticed her pause here and she suddenly got a pensive look on her face.

"I was so scared and confused… I just wanted to get out, so I ran to it. The clerk called the police, and I sat in that Subway for two hours. After the police interrogated me, an EMT talked to me and they got me here. Police have been talking to me every now and then. And that brings us to this present moment." She finished, again with a sad smile on her face.

Reid knew that he was supposed to be looking at Kristy's body language, but he was observing Emily's as well. She looked surprised, telling Reid that Kristy must not have said a lot of this before. This implied that Kristy trusted him, but he had no idea why. After attacks, female victims hardly ever reach out to males.

"Kristy, did the cops ever tell you anything?" Reid asked.

"Nope. They asked me questions. They even brought pictures and asked me to identify the man who did it." Kristy replied.

Reid and Emily shared a look. They knew that something wasn't right. If the local authorities were that far along, why didn't the BAU know? Reid began to wonder, and he pulled out the case files from his bag.

"Kristy, you know now that there are other victims, right?" Reid asked anxiously.

"Yes." She replied.

"Do recognize these girls? Two go to the same school as you, but how about the other two?" Reid said, pulling out the school pictures of the girls and handing them to Kristy.

"Of course." Kristy said.

"You do?" Reid and Emily said almost at the same time. "Is there anything that's similar between you all?" Reid asked as well, getting excited.

"Well, other than the obvious, not a lot. Corra's a major drama queen. You know, plays, oral interp stuff like that. She's kind of crazy but she's really nice. Haley is your all around picture perfect girl. Good grades, good at sports, social butterfly. She was always nice to me. Ginger, goll, she's just the sweetest person you've ever met. She'd never hurt a fly and she's always so considerate. And Rachael? Complete tomboy. She played varsity volleyball, and she's a seventh grader! And me, well, I manage sports and I'm a debater. Not too much in common." Kristy finished.

"Obvious? What's so obvious?" Reid asked. No one had picked up anything in common between the girls.

"It's pretty apparent." Kristy said. All she got in response were Reid and Emily's looks of confusion. "Our addresses?" she replied sarcastically.

"Birdle?" Emily asked still confused.

"Birdle addresses cover over 40 square miles; you can't just consider you all to be similar just because you're from the same city." Reid replied.

"You're right. In rural South Dakota, even if you live in those limits, you still pretty much pick your hometown. But I was talking about the roads, not the city." Kristy replied. "Edge Lane, Shore Drive, Cooper Road, we all live on Lake Cooper. Or lived technically. I moved last September." Kristy finished.

Reid was mentally kicking himself. He should have seen that. It all made sense, they could have come into contact with the unsub at a lake function. Emily was already on her cell phone calling Gideon.

"Kristy, are there any lake functions that every girl here would have gone to?" Reid asked, excitement rising in his voice.

"Every girl? I don't know about that…" Kristy replied.

"What do you mean?" Reid asked.

"Well, Corra's family isn't really into the fact that they live on the third nicest lake in Eastern South Dakota thing. They don't own a boat or anything, and Rachael's is very similar. Of course, they might still participate a little in some things, like the Lake Cooper Appreciation Days, or Fourth of July things. I know Haley really well by lake means. She was my neighbor. Well, not technically, there was a summer home that separated our homes, but we considered ourselves neighbors. Dr. Reid," Kristy suddenly looked up, her eyes wide, "how badly were they hurt?"

Reid was unsure how to answer that. Emily got off her phone after Kristy asked the question, leaving Reid to answer on his own. He saw the emotions in Kristy's eyes. Raw fear covered her face.

"Uh, they were injured, uh, pretty badly." Reid said shakily.

"Are they okay?"

"JJ is talking to the doctors. We can tell you what she finds out." Emily reassured her with a smile. "There she is now."

Emily and Reid turned to talk to JJ.

"Hey, what'd you find out?" Emily asked.

"This guy is really messed up. Corra and Haley are still in comas. Doctors said that both could go either way still. Ginger woke up, but she is nowhere near competent. Right now, they are still trying to get her to tell her family members. The doctors don't think she'll be able to tell us anything even when she competent again." JJ said sadly. "Rachael still remains unconscious, but things are looking up."

Emily and Reid began processing this information.

"Oh, and we got tox reports back. This is weird, he used something different for Kristy, but the others were all relatively similar." JJ said pulling out copies of the files for Emily and Reid to read.

"Yeah, it looks like he mixed Etomidate and Rohypnol." Reid said,

"What does that mean?" JJ asked anxiously.

"Etomidate is a sedative essentially. However, it only works for a short while. Rophypnol is also a sedative, but it also causes amnesia. When you combine these two drugs, the new result will easily take out a person fast. He changed the ratio a bit each time. It was always rather similar, and this could be why he changed when he got to Kristy's. And Kristy's is…" Reid said as he quickly scanned the report. Suddenly his head perked up, scaring JJ and Emily.

"We have to talk to everyone else right away." Reid said, taking off towards the parking lot.

"Wait, why?" Emily called after him as she and JJ hurried to follow.

"We may have a witness." He simply stated.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Once again, I do not own Criminal Minds. If I did, I would be very rich and very happy.

For a research note, the first part of this is mostly true. However, once I get into the amnesia parts, I've, uh, embellished a bit. Anterograde amnesia does exist, but I don't think you can get the memory back. Okay, now I'm ruining the surprise.

If you like it, please review. If you didn't like it, please review. If you are feeling ambiguous, please review. I'll shut up now.

Everyone was seated at a table in a conference room the Watertown police had offered them. Reid was up front ready to give his presentation.

"Okay, the unsub injected the first four girls with a powerful sedative. The girls would have had no motor control, no idea of anything around them. They would be completely unresponsive. With Corra and Hailey, he used almost the exact same dose. However, with Rachael and Ginger he lightened the dose, but the amount was still large enough for there to be no interaction between him and the girls. Most likely, he wanted the girls to know they were being attacked, but he still wanted them to remain powerless. That's why he changed drugs with Kristy. He used Diazepam, a drug that can cause a near sleep. Kristy would appear to almost be dozing. She wouldn't completely be asleep. He combined this with the Etomidate he used on the other girls as well in order to sedate Kristy." Reid stated.

"Would he change to show her that had more power, or is he getting braver?" Hotch asked.

"It could be both. I think he was leaning more towards power though, because if he really wanted to be brave, he would have significantly lowered the dose of the drugs he was giving before. He knew that they worked, so he trusted them. However, he changed to something that is known for sedating a person and leaving them partially conscious. However, he screwed up. Somehow he got the ratios wrong, in fact, I think he switched them. In order to keep Kristy down for a long time, he would have needed a large amount of Etomidate. The amount he used was rather small, but the amount of Diazepam was huge." Reid finally finished.

"So, what does this have to do with a witness?" JJ asked.

"Oh," Reid stumbled, forgetting about that part "well, Diazepam creates a near sense of sleep, not real sleep. Kristy was most likely aware of her surroundings subconsciously."

"Even with the sedative?" Morgan interrupted.

"Even with that. The amount wasn't enough to make her completely unaware." Reid affirmed.

"Then why hasn't she told us anything?" Hotch spoke up. "She could have identified the man by now."

"Most likely because she is suffering from something called anterograde amnesia. This is a form of amnesia in which the person has the memory, but it is not transferred over into their long term memory." Reid answered.

"So the memory is just sitting somewhere in her brain where she can't remember it?" Morgan asked amazed.

"Yes." Reid said.

"So, how do we use it? If she hasn't remembered by now, will she ever?" Gideon asked.

"This is where it's confusing. You see, this is like the memories a person has from when they're babies. Because of a movement of a lobe in the brain around age 3, a person should not remember what happened before that time. However, some memories cross over and you experience a moment of déjà vu from a trigger in your later life." Reid explained.

"So how do we get her memory to cross over?" Hotch asked.

"We pull the trigger." Reid stated.

"And we find that by…" Morgan inquired.

"Getting to know her. It will most likely be related to this, and because of the nature of the drug, it will have something to do with something very deeply embedded in her brain." Reid answered.

"We profile her." Gideon added.

Reid nodded. Hotch got an uneasy look on his face.

"Reid, will this work for sure?" He asked nervously.

"Well, it's not 100 guaranteed. There have been cases of people victimized with this drug who experience flashbacks from minute things of their lives. They try to return to normal, and all of sudden they know everything that happened." Reid finished.

"Is there a high enough chance that it will work to try it?" Hotch asked, still looking uneasy about the idea.

"To try, definitely." Reid replied.

"Okay. You can work on that but first we need to determine how the unsub was able to get these drugs." Hotch.

"Rohypnol's a street drug. Anyone can get it." Morgan said.

"Diazepam is given to people who suffer from panic attacks, depression, some times insomnia, a lot of different things." Gideon stated. "The unsub could have a prescription for it."

"Etomidate is different. This is only given in emergency rooms to quickly sedate a patient. He'd have to be associated with a hospital to get access." Reid said.

"Did Kristy say anything about seeing him?" Hotch asked.

"She said she didn't, but she really didn't open up." JJ said.

"Until Reid came." Emily added.

"What?" JJ asked.

"With us, she gave short answers at first. She didn't trust us really. I mean, the longer we were there, the better it got, but Reid came and she trusted him." Emily said.

"Which is odd." Reid added. "Female victims often don't reach out, or if they do it would be to other females."

"Many things in this case aren't adding up." Hotch said. "At the scene, we expected to found tons of DNA and other things. There was nothing, nowhere near enough blood to support the injuries these girls received. Of course he could have taken them there after, but what was Kristy doing there if she wasn't supposed to be beaten there?" Hotch asked.

The team shook their heads.

"You know, Kristy said something about a cop trying to get her to ID the guy." Emily said. Reid nodded, having realized he forgot that.

"ID him? Wouldn't they have told us?" Morgan said.

"Would they have even needed us if they were that close?" Gideon said.

"Could these be dirty cops?" Emily asked.

"According to Stanten, the officer who responded was picking up a shift. However, he went undercover today on a drug bust. We can't talk to him for a few days, when they think he'll be back." Hotch said.

"We'll have to see if that can be sped up. I think he knows something that he's not telling. In the meantime, we'll have to look elsewhere for the answer. We now know the connection, Lake Cooper. Something that happened to this man makes him want to take out revenge on these girls because they are from this lake. Why?" Gideon inquired.

"He could have had some negative experience around this age and he's getting back at them for it." Emily said.

"Have Garcia look into accidents, or other incidents taking place in the last thirty years. He's between the ages of 30 and 40 now and he works at a hospital.

"I'll call her." Morgan said, leaving to take the call.

"Speak to the technology goddess." Garcia ordered Morgan when she answered.

"Hey beautiful." He replied

"I can't wait for you guys to come back." Garcia replied with a smile Morgan could hear, even over the distance.

"Why's that?" 

"Because I have to make sure that you're not freezing over there. I checked, according to the National Weather Service, there is a high of 33." She explained.

"That just means that you'll have to warm me up when we get back." Morgan retorted. He heard Garcia give her evil giggle. "Listen, I need you to do a few searches for me."

"Oh, challenge me." She replied getting excited.

"First, search for any hospitals in this area that have reported robberies." Morgan said.

"Anything in particular?" Garcia asked, her computers firing up.

"Missing drugs." Morgan replied.

"Okay. I got something. It looks like a few weeks ago, the local Watertown hospital reported something missing. They didn't say what was stolen but it appears that an employee or someone in the hospital that night did it." Garcia answered. "I'm sending a list of patients and employees in that night."

"Great. Can you also cross check that list with anything associated with Lake Cooper?" Morgan inquired.

"Of course. I'll send that over as well when I get it." She replied.

"Can you also search for an incident that may have occurred at Lake Cooper in the last 30 years or so?" Morgan asked.

"What kind of incident are we talking? I mean, just in the last year I have a boating accident, a fire, an ice fishing accident…"

"Something associated with teenagers, around age 17, give or take. Something that would make someone want revenge." Morgan replied.

"I'll start the search, but that one will take a while. I'll send that over as well."

"Great, thanks. I gotta go." Morgan said.

"The hot tub will be ready anytime you are." Garcia told him.

Morgan smiled and turned back into the conference room.

"Okay, Garcia found that the major hospital here had a burglary a few weeks ago. She couldn't locate exactly what was missing, so we'll need to talk to the staff. She's sending over a list of patients and employees in that night." Morgan told the group. Hotch nodded his head.

"Well, most likely a patient didn't do it." Emily said. "They wouldn't know where to go in the hospital."

"No, they probably didn't, but we should check it out." Gideon stated.

"Reid, Morgan, head down to the hospital. Morgan, interview the staff and find out what you can about getting these drugs. Reid, do whatever it is that will get that memory. JJ, try to get the cop who did the scene back so we can question him. The rest of us will start looking into incidents involving Lake Cooper and the employee records." Hotch ordered.

"Back so soon?" Kristy asked Reid as he walked back into her room.

She looked like she had been dozing. Reid noticed that she appeared to have the same sad smile on her face.

"Uh, yeah. I need to talk to you some more." Reid said.

"About what? I know nothing more than what I have already told you." Kristy replied.

"Actually, you might. In fact you might have witnessed the entire ordeal." Reid said.

Kristy stared at him with disbelief.

"You see, you were injected with something that caused you to see this memory, but you didn't store it in your long term memory. We can get it to come over by triggering the memory, just like in-" Reid started to say but was interrupted.

"Autism" Kristy finished staring down at her hands.

This time, Reid stared at her. She looked up when Reid didn't say anything.

"People with autism often know things, but when asked a question won't understand how to respond to it. However, when a certain word is said, it can trigger something and then they'll say whatever the trigger leads to." Kristy said.

Reid was amazed. But, he wasn't amazed at this fact. He had known that this was very similar to autism. It was amazing to him that she knew this, that she had been able to respond to something so intelligently. Reid then realized that this was going to greatly affect his profile.

"Mr. Reid, are you all right?" She asked timidly after a few minutes.

"What? Oh uh yes. This is very much like autism. Anyway, to do this I'll have to get to know you, figure out what your trigger might be. Oh, and you can call me Reid. Everyone does." Reid said.

"I'm so sorry." She replied with a chuckle.

"Excuse me?" Reid asked.

"My life is so boring, you might just die. Oh, and about the Reid thing." She said laughing.

"I'm sure it's not that bad. My life hasn't been all that exciting." Reid replied.

"Mr. Reid, I have known you for like two hours and I know that you are a genius and an FBI agent. That's a bit more exciting than a 14 year old teenager whose main goal in life is to have a perfect GPA." She replied. "Do you want me to just start talking, or do you want to ask questions?"

"Probably both. I just need to learn enough about you. It's something common because otherwise someone would have said it by now and the memory would be present. I have a few questions that I'd like to start." Reid stated.

"You're in charge." Kristy said, sinking back into her bed getting comfortable.

"Well, why did you demeanor change so much when I arrived?" Reid asked.

"Did Ms. Prentiss tell you about the eyes rolling thing?" She asked with a smile.

"Uh, yes."

"If I don't talk to her and Ms. Jaraeu again, tell them I'm sorry. It wasn't personal." Kristy said.

"But why did you do it?" Reid asked again.

Kristy sighed.

"Because I didn't believe them." She replied quietly.

"About what?" Reid asked. This was very strange indeed.

"That they were FBI agents from Virginia who were looking into this case." Kristy replied simply.

"Why not?"

"Mr. Reid, when I told the local cops that I couldn't ID the man, well frankly, they got pissed. They wanted to catch the guy. All the pictures they were showing me were from some sex offender registry and for all I know, it could have been one of them. When I told the cop that I would tell someone that he was trying to get me to blame an innocent person, he just laughed. He said that soon enough, he was going to be so famous that no one would believe a kid who was drugged versus a cop. After that, I didn't trust any other cop that tried to talk to me.

"And then all of a sudden two FBI agents show up, claiming that they are investigating this, and they didn't bring a list of suspects. Oh yeah, like I was going to believe that." She said snorting.

"But you trusted me…."

"Well, I believed them when I saw you." Kristy said.

"Why?" Reid asked, still very confused.

"Because when you came in you looked like you were frigid." She replied with a laugh.

"It's 30 degrees outside!" Reid exclaimed.

"And if you were really a local cop pretending to be an FBI agent, then you wouldn't have even flinched." Kristy replied.

Seeing the look of disbelief on Reid's face, she smiled.

"Mr. Reid, back in January, we had highs of negative 30 some days. Trust me, this is warm for early March in South Dakota. I believed that there was no way that you could be from around here. And then I saw the way you act with Ms. Jaraeu and Ms. Prentiss and I knew that you were all too well acquainted to have just met each other. You and Ms. Jaraeu were especially close. Why doesn't Ms. Prentiss trust you?" Kristy said suddenly after pausing for a minute.

Reid was taken aback by most of what she had just said, but he nearly went into shock at her question.

"Who says she doesn't trust me?" Reid asked innocently, knowing the truth in his heart.

"Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Reid." Kristy replied with a laugh. "She tensed up immediately after you walked in. But don't worry, she doesn't trust Ms. Jareau much more than she does you."

Reid had made his conclusion about the profile for this girl; there wasn't one. The profile of a teenage girl showed that she would not have been this confident, nor this intuitive. Reid knew that this was uncharted territory and that the only way he would find the trigger would be by understanding her completely. And that took time. Deciding to keep it light, Reid decided to once again joke slightly.

"I thought I was asking the questions." He said with a small smile.

Kristy again smiled, but this time, this smile was one of knowledge. Reid looked forward to what she had to say before she had even started.

"Mr. Reid, if you listen to how I process things in my head, then I guarantee that you shall understand me better than most other people in the world do." Kristy replied.

Reid finally sat down in a plastic chair next to Kristy. He took out his legal pad and began to make notes. He knew that every bit of information would help.

A half hour later, Morgan looked into the door of the hospital room. He saw Reid talking very deeply with Kristy. He knocked and walked in.

"Hey, Reid." Morgan greeted him.

"Oh, hey Morgan. Kristy, this is Agent Derek Morgan." Reid said. Kristy gave him a small wave. "What'd you get?"

"Well, etomidate was not the stolen items from a few weeks ago. As it turns out, a few medical records were stolen, which is why it wasn't reported. Hospital didn't want everyone to freak out. However, when I asked the nurse to check their stores, it turns out that there was another robbery. Etomidate was missing from their long-term stores, which are only checked every few weeks when a shipment comes in and when they go for something. This is all recorded, so we have a time frame because the last person to check in was four weeks ago." Morgan said.

"Are the medical records related to the victims?" Reid asked, standing up and heading over to Morgan.

"No. The nurse also said that only employees knew about those stores." Morgan replied, whipping out his cell phone. "I'll call Garcia to tell her to give us a new list without patients but with all the employees in the last four weeks."

Reid nodded his head as he began processing this information. Because the unsub most likely didn't have a large amount of control at work, he probably had a quiet job. This would include receptionists, transcriptionists … what else? The majority of the people in a hospital were important. Unless, of course, this person worked with the administration.

Reid sighed. He hated it when hardly anything in the case added up. Morgan got off his cell phone.

"Kristy, you okay?" Morgan asked her.

Reid had sort of forgotten that she was there. Morgan's question caused him to turn around, and he saw the confused look on her face.

"Well, I was sort of waiting for Reid to explain what Etomidate is." Kristy replied.

Morgan and Reid both shared looks of confusion.

"What do you mean waiting?" Reid asked timidly.

"Well, I have noticed that you often explain things without first asking whether or not a person understands them. This could result from knowing that you are of high intelligence and that you wish to share it. It's almost like you feel bad that you got more knowledge than others, so you try to share it. However, you have never thought of it like this. It's just something that you no longer realize that you do." Kristy replied.

Kristy looked up at their faces. Reid knew what she was looking for; she wanted to know she was right. He sadly admitted to himself that she was. Reid did explain things without considering if the person knew it or not. Usually they didn't, but he now he was so used to it that he didn't even think about it.

The fact that Kristy had said this to him no longer shocked him. Reid saw Morgan's face of disbelief. He was about to explain Kristy's statement when Morgan let out a chuckle.

"She's got you figured out man." Morgan said.

Reid blushed and smiled a little.

"Kristy, etomidate is a quick-acting sedative." Reid explained quietly.

"She sounds like a mini- Reid." Morgan joked.

Reid turned violently toward Morgan to give him a look. However, as he was turning, Reid had felt a bit dizzy. Dizzy enough to spill the cup of ever-present coffee. Morgan gave another sad chuckle.

"This happens a lot. Reid is the team genius and clutz." Morgan explained, helping Reid clean it up with some paper towels he found at the sink in the back of the room. Reid once again blushed.

Kristy gave her reply of a 'hmm'.

"Well, I guess I need to go get some more coffee." Reid said, still blushing.

"I found a waiting room with it. I'll go with you." Morgan offered.

"Okay. Kristy, you'll be all right, won't you?" Reid asked.

"I sure hope so." She replied with a sarcastic smile.

Reid chuckled lightly and headed out with Morgan.

"Man, she's different." Was the first thing that popped out of Morgan's mouth.

"Yeah, but she's really intelligent." Reid replied.

"I figure that out. Profiled her yet?" Morgan asked.

Reid shook his head.

"No? Why not? Usually teenagers are pretty easy." Morgan inquired.

"Yeah, but she's not usual. And yet she is…" Reid trailed off.

"Excuse me?" Morgan asked.

"You see, half the time, she's like that where she is highly intelligent and very perceptive. The other half, she sounds like a normal teenager, you know, she uses slang and bad grammar. And then she'll all of sudden have to think and then she'll sound like she's about ready to graduate from college. I don't know which angle to go from." Reid thought aloud.

"What is she talking about when she sounds like a teenager?" Morgan asked.

"Her home life, things she's used to." Reid replied.

"Well, she said she lived at Lake Cooper. It might be best to keep her towards that track." Morgan rationalized.

Reid and Morgan walked into the waiting room as Morgan's cell phone rang. He answered it as Reid got his coffee. Morgan closed it shut after a minute.

"Whatever you do, you better try to crack her fast. We have another victim." Morgan said tersely.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you so much for the awesome reviews!!! It's really encouraging to me.

Sorry it's been so long; I have come by many ailments, among those a cold and writer's block. I don't feel as sound about this chapter, hence the writer's block. I promise many more twists and turns and better things as time goes by.

Once again, I don't own 'Criminal Minds.' If I did, I would know what really will happen to the drug storyline.

Reid stared in shock at Morgan.

"What do you know?" Reid asked.

"Hotch said her name was Anna Shanken, 15." Morgan replied. "Hotch didn't say anything else. He wants us down there."

Reid nodded and followed Morgan. His mind was racing. A sixth victim in six days. How lucky would this girl be? Suddenly, Reid got an idea.

"Morgan, wait. I have to talk to Kristy." Reid said, heading in the opposite direction.

"Reid, she said it herself, she's fine." Morgan called after him.

"Not that." Reid replied heading down the hall even faster.

He arrived back in Kristy's room a few minutes later and was almost beat by Morgan.

"Kristy, do you know a Anna Shanken?" Reid asked.

"Anna Shanken? Yeah, she's in my class. Why?" Kristy asked. Reid was about to explain, but Kristy beat him to it. "Wait? You mean… he got her too?" She asked with fear again.

Kristy looked ready to cry. Morgan walked over to her.

"Kristy, it's going to be okay." Morgan comforted her, putting a hand on her shoulder. He gave Reid a look asking why he had upset her.

"Kristy, is she related to Lake Cooper?" Reid asked.

Kristy considered this a moment before answering.

"More or less. Her family has always had a summer place out there, but this summer they moved up here and lived in the cabin while they built a house in town. They moved to Lakewood around Christmas break I think. I didn't know who she was or how she was related to the lake until August. She was sort of known, but no too much. Now she's one of us." Kristy replied. "What does this have to with the case?" She asked Reid.

Reid hesitated for a moment. He didn't know if he should tell her. Then he remembered the many, many moments she had proved herself worthy of knowing, all in a few hours.

"We think the man is lashing out at you because you are all from Lake Cooper." He told her.

"Why? What doe she have against the lake?" Kristy asked.

"We don't know." Reid replied.

"Is there anything that people usually don't like about the lake?" Morgan asked.

"Well, if you live on Lake Cooper, you have money somewhere. Lots of people in Lakewood hold that against me." Kristy replied quietly.

"Why do you have to be rich to live on the lake?" Morgan asked.

"Lake Cooper is the third cleanest lake in Eastern South Dakota. It's spring fed, meaning that it never even dried up in the dust bowl. Usually, they are some of the most popular lakes." Kristy stated.

"So, kids tease you or what?" Morgan asked.

"No, not really. They just think I'm a stuck up bitch pretty much." Kristy said nonchalantly. "And they know my life story, know the truth, and yet they don't care." Kristy replied, anger rising in her voice. Reid could tell she was switching over to teenager again.

"The truth?" Reid asked.

Kristy nodded again and got an annoyed look on her face.

"Are you needed to go back to help Anna?" Kristy asked.

Morgan and Reid nodded.

"Leave now. I'll tell my family saga later. Help her." Kristy urged them.

Reid wanted to stay and learn more. However, Kristy was right. Another girl

needed them; she needed to be saved.

Morgan and Reid left quickly and headed down to the station. Already a report on Anna was there.

"Hey." JJ greeted them. "Anna Shenken. 15 years old, a freshman at Lakewood High, currently residing in Lakewood. Never returned home from shopping with her friends."

"With her friends?" Reid asked curiously.

"She dropped them off and called her mom from about 15 minutes away from home. Apparently, all of them needed to be taken out of town somewhere. Her mother got worried when a half hour passed and called the cops when it had been an hour. Her car was found on the side of the road about two miles from her friend's house."

"We're trying to determine if this is related." Hotch said.

"It is. Before we came over, we talked to Kristy. She said that Anna's family owns some land on Lake Cooper." Reid said.

"Why is he going after them because of the lake?" Emily asked. "We've spent all afternoon going over reports, but nothing worth this kind of revenge is turning up." She explained.

"Well, Kristy said that some people hold it against her for being from the lake. She said that you have to have a lot of money to buy a spot." Morgan explained.

"This isn't about money. If it was, he would have contacted us or the family by now. He wants control, and he's taking these girls to get it." Gideon said.

"Well, if he has another girl, where did he go?" Emily asked. "The abandoned building he was using is locked up and has tape and everything all over it. He can't get in."

"Maybe he was prepared." Reid said quietly.

"Like in case this happened?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah, he could have a place chosen in case he could no longer use his first choice." Reid said.

"Which would mean he is very paranoid and smart." Gideon stated. "He didn't plan on Kristy getting away, and yet he is still able to keep his pattern going. And the pattern will continue until he is done or we catch him."

The whole team fell silent for a moment as they began to contemplate this.

"What do we do now?" JJ asked.

Hotch looked lost for words. He had no idea.

"Tell the Watertown PD that we're ready for a profile briefing." Gideon commanded Hotch.

"The man we are looking for is between the ages of 30 and 50." Gideon started. "He works in at the local hospital but not in a high position. He is unnoticeable at work, people just walk by. He doesn't have control and he desperately wants it."

"Most likely, he is somewhat fit, but not so much that he stands out for it. He is strong enough to drag a teenage girl who has been drugged a distance." Hotch contributed.

"He is most likely taking his revenge out on these girls because they represent someone or something else. To fulfill his delusions, he must take these girls." Reid added. "Normally, in cases of abduction, random victims are picked because of their looks or because they go somewhere. In this case, they are picked because they're all from Lake Cooper."

"Excuse me, but how will this really help us? Only so many people work at the hospital…" An officer spoke up.

"Even if we find the man who did this, it doesn't mean we'll find the girl." Hotch explained. "As far as we know, the hospital has not reported anything strange, so this man has been able to still kidnap this girl, and keep a façade of normalcy. This means that he is operating close by. We don't know the area as well as you do. You know places that would work to hide a girl and places that wouldn't. We're giving you the profile of this guy so you can get into his head, and apply what you know about the area to this kind of a person."

Every officer looked uncomfortable at what Hotch said. Reid wondered how many times he had seen people in small towns be shocked that someone they know could do this. He had grown tired of this stupid misconception. Anyone can become a killer; many people are just too stupid, too naïve…

'What? No, why am I thinking this?' Reid thought to himself alarmed. One moment, he was considering the case, and then I'm thinking terrible thoughts about people he didn't even know…

'Damn mood swings.' Reid finally concluded. 'This can't get to me. Gideon will know something's up…'

Suddenly, all the officers stood up and left. Reid hadn't been paying attention to the last few minutes of the briefing, so he assumed that it was over. Hotch moved over towards the rest of the team.

"Okay, our best shot is to look into hospital employees and their association with the lake. Garcia sent over a list a people. We need to begin looking into them." Hotch said.

"I want to go out to Lake Cooper. Maybe seeing the lake itself will give us an idea as to why he wants revenge." Gideon said.

"You might want to wait with that." Detective Stanten injected.

"Why?" Morgan asked.

"It'll be dark by the time you get there." He replied. "You won't get anything till tomorrow."

Looking at his watch, Reid hadn't realized that it was already 7:40 p.m. He couldn't believe that it was a mere twelve hours ago that he had woken up from his drug induced stupor.

"We'll go tomorrow. Tonight we need to concentrate on finding the girl." Hotch said.

"Are you sure that all we need is a search party of my men? Shouldn't we be doing something more?" Detective Staten asked.

"The unsub shows that while he is violent to the girls, he never tried to kill them." Gideon said.

"That's a real comfort." Detective Stanten said.

"But it means that she is probably still alive and will be taken care of until we find her." Hotch said.

"But you said at the crime scene that the unsub might get more violent because he's mad…"

"He might. But killing her would be a major jump for him. Don't worry, we're doing everything we can." Hotch replied.

The team then headed back to the conference room where files and papers were stacking up. Everyone sat down wearily and began to look at the different people that qualified for the unsub. After another hour and a half, Hotch asked everyone for their report.

"I got nothing." Reid said. Indeed he didn't. Everyone person he had looked into had a very high job at the Watertown hospital.

"Same here." JJ said. Morgan and Emily nodded in agreement. Hotch sighed heavily.

"Does he have to be associated with the hospital?" Emily asked. "Could someone have gotten the drugs for him?"

"He most likely is. This type of unsub usually works alone." Gideon said. "We'll have to dig deeper."

Reid sighed and looked down in his coffee cup. It was empty and he left to refill it. Unbeknownst to him, Gideon followed him.

"Hey, Reid." Gideon greeted him as Reid started to poor the sustaining liquid.

"Oh, Gideon. Sorry, it's gonna be a late night and I needed a bit of boost." Reid said sheepishly.

"No it's fine. I was just wondering how you were holding up." Gideon asked with concern on his face.

"Oh, um, fine." Reid tried to say as innocently as possible. "I've kept my promise; I didn't miss the plane."

Gideon nodded in agreement but Reid could tell his eyes were far from it. They were filled with worry and it made Reid uncomfortable.

"Look, if you need to you can head over to the hotel early. The search party will end in a few hours. They won't find anything tonight; the unsub is too organized and he won't repeat his mistake." Gideon said.

Reid nodded. The whole team knew this.

"Hotch figured we'd call it a night when we felt we had exhausted every possibility from the hospital. We'll stay until they come back though." Gideon stated.

"Well, if everyone else is working, I should too. I'm fine; I can handle it." Reid assured him.

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes."

Gideon didn't look 100 satisfied, but he knew Reid's stubbornness. He also trusted Reid and knew that he if it was too much he would say something. He turned to go back to the conference room.

"Wait, Gideon, do you think I could go back to the hospital and talk to Kristy?" Reid suddenly asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"She's our only other lead. The hospital probably won't let me talk to her for long, and the more I can get to know her the better. She said she was going to tell us more about the lake." Reid explained.

"It's worth a try." Gideon replied.

"Did you find her?" was the greeting that awaited Reid as he turned into Kristy's room.

Reid shook his head sadly.

"We have a search party out but they haven't found anything." He explained.

Kristy nodded her head sadly.

"So, what's up?" She asked.

"Well, I came by to talk to you more about the lake and your connection…" Reid started to say.

"Oh yeah. My family saga. Pull up a chair, it's long." She instructed him. Reid did as he was told and she got comfortable on her bed.

"Well, when I was born I was completely normal. I had my mom, dad, my older brother Riley and we later we got a dog. Picture perfect. Then, when I was eight, my mom and dad separated."

"I'm sorry." Reid said sadly. "I know what that's like."

"Your parent's are divorced?"

"Yeah. My dad moved out on us when I was ten." Reid said.

Wait, why was he pouring his guts to her? He had to know her story! Hardly anyone on the team even knew about that…

"I'm sorry. My parents didn't want my and Riley to see it, so they sent us to different friends to spend the night. I came home the next day and my dad was gone but my aunt and uncle were there…" She trailed off for a moment.

"When I was nine, they finalized it and were officially divorced. They were granted joint custody, which they took literally." Kristy added with a smile. "Since I was eight, Monday's have been dad's, Tuesday's mom's, Wednesday's dad's, Thursday's mom's, and the weekend we switch off mom, dad, mom, dad. Of course, that's been subject to change over the years. Now, I actually figured it out. I technically only spend 48 of my time with my dad, and 52 with my mom."

Reid laughed at the last bit as Kristy was too.

"When I was 10, my mother got a 'friend'." Kristy said accenting the last word. "They got engaged the summer before I went to middle school and they married the week after I started. He lived on Lake Cooper, and his house was so big because he was so rich that we decided to move out there. Then, last summer, we put the house up for sale."

"Why?" Reid asked, hoping it would be relevant to the case.

"Because a psycho with an axe was running around threatening us." Kristy replied calmly.

Reid stared at her. Kristy stared back for a few moments, before letting out a hearty laugh.

"Kidding. It was because the house was too much work. The lot was huge, the house was huge, and me and my mother didn't like to clean it. The 15 mile drive also didn't suit us well. Our lives are in Lakewood. I go to school there, our church is there, mom used to work there, my dad lived there. It's my true home." Kristy stated. "We sold it the day my dad moved out to the country after having lived in the same apartment he moved into when they got separated for five and a half years."

Kristy paused for a minute. Reid started to soak this in. The one part of the story that shocked him the most was her schedule. Reid thought he never would have been able to cope with something like that.

"And that brings us to the current day. Now, what about your story?" She asked.

"What? Oh, um, there's not a lot to tell. Besides, we need to figure out how to get that memory back…" Reid stammered.

"Bullshit, but whatever." Kristy said.

Both were silent for a few minutes.

"Wait a second, Kristy, why aren't your parents here?" Reid asked suddenly, wondering why he had not realized this before. He had met Anna's parents, and yet he had never seen Kristy's…

Kristy started to shift her eyes uncomfortably.

"Uh…well…uh…" She started and the sighed. "Okay, straight out, I lied. Mom and dad are both out of town. Mom thinks that Dad came home early a few days from his business trip in Sioux City and Dad think that mom isn't leaving for her spring break trip to Florida for a few more days. I've had three days home alone, they didn't know, and it's been amazing." She added with a satisfied smile.

"You've been alone for three days?" Reid asked again. "Who knew about this?" 

"Uh, kind of a lot of people. I was a little excited, so a lot of people heard me talk about it." She said sheepishly.

The unsub left her for three days. That means that he might of picked each girl ahead of time and not out of convenience or Kristy would have been snatched earlier. This might also mean that he has a list of girls that he wants next…

"Kristy, if there were any other girls around your age that are associated with Lake Cooper, who would they be?" Reid asked excitedly.

"More? I don't know." She thought it over a few moments. "I think I know every teenager that lives on the lake. There isn't really another one I can think of. Does this mean that he might be done?" She asked hopefully.

"It might. But we won't know for sure unless he doesn't do it again." Reid said slowly.

Kristy nodded. Both were silent for a few minutes. Reid's thoughts were filled with pictures of the other girls, their mangled bodies. The only injuries found on Kristy were the scratches on her legs from being dragged.

'How lucky will Anna be?' Reid wondered to himself.

"Kristy, how is it that you're still able to smile?" Reid asked suddenly.

This had been bothering him for quite some time. Kristy was joking, and, well, acting quite normal for only 24 hours ago having undergone an attack.

"Like, why am I not acting like the world is ending or something? Why haven't I cried, or broken down, that sort of thing? I don't know. Probably because I don't comprehend what happened." Kristy replied.

"Just because you don't remember doesn't mean you don't comprehend it." Reid said.

"I'm not like that. I can't understand something like that; I _know _that I was attacked, but I don't remember. If I can't remember my feelings, the sounds, the sights, everything, I won't believe it really happened." Kristy replied quietly.

"Kristy, if you don't want to do this…" Reid said.

"Of course I want to do it. This is the closest we're going to get to finding the creep right?" Kristy asked.

"Well, so far we know he works in a hospital, probably has a low job there, is white, between his 30's and 50's, do you know someone who could be close to that?" Reid asked.

"Do I know a creep who has been to the lake enough to be mad at it between the ages of 30 and 50 that's white? Yeah, plenty of them. Only, we call them campers." Kristy replied. "The lake is a place to play during the day, a great place for the adults to get wasted at by night. I've met so many wasted people it's sad. Then it gets worse when I start meeting wasted kids…" She added with a look of disgust.

Reid gave her a look. He knew that South Dakota rated among the highest for underage drinking problems in the nation. Kristy picked up on it and laguhed

"Don't worry. I'm voted most likely to become a nun which is remarkable because I'm not even Catholic." Kristy replied.

Reid laughed. It felt good; he hadn't really laughed in a while.

"Is it really that bad?" Reid asked.

"The drinking? Oh yeah. I've figured it out. By the time we enter our sophmore year, about 75 of my class will have gotten drunk at one time or another. By our Junior year, about 66 will have had sex. And for the smoking and the drugs, I don't know. They're luckily not as popular." Kristy said.

Reid jumped at drugs. He had been for a long time. Anytime someone else said 'addicted', 'drugs', or anything along that line he jumped, of course thanks to his addiction to drugs that caused such anxiety. Nobody had noticed so far. A nurse entered the room behind Reid so quietly that Reid jumped again when she spoke to him.

"Excuse me sir, but we're going to ask you to leave soon. She needs her rest." The nurse said.

"You know, I'm really fine. I feel great, the scratches will heal, I'm going to be fine." Kristy pleaded.

The nurse gave her a warning look and left.

"I really am fine." Kristy said to Reid.

Reid smiled, thankful that she had changed the subject.

"I'm sure you are Kristy, but doctor's orders." Reid replied standing up.

"They said that I can go home tomorrow. Will I need to stay here to keep pouring my life story to you?"

"I don't know." Reid replied with a smile. "We're going to the lake tomorrow, to see if we figure out what is so important about it."

Kristy nodded.

"Wait, why don't you come with us? We could use you, help us get around." Reid said.

"If I can, sure. I'll help get this guy anyway I can." Kristy replied.

"Then get some rest." Reid said.

He turned and went back to the station. Reid's mind was racing, and yet he was drowsy. His body was tired, and yet he could barely stop jiggling his leg whenever he sat down. He knew it was going to be a long night.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Okay, so here it is. Once again hope you all enjoy and please review. Thank you so much to the awesome reviews that I have received.

Once again, I don't own Criminal Minds.

Reid returned to the station to find it empty save for a few local cops. Apparently, the search was called at ten, and the team had headed back to the hotel to catch up on sleep. Nothing major had been found, and their current lead of Lake Cooper remained to be their only lead.

Reid walked into the room he would be sharing with Morgan a little while later.

"Hey. How'd it go?" Morgan asked.

"Hmm? Oh, fine…" Reid answered.

He wasn't feeling good. His head felt like it was spinning and all he wanted was to sleep.

Morgan looked up.

"You okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah fine." Reid replied.

He threw down his bag and began pulling out the items he needed.

"Just a little tired, that's all…" Reid said.

"We put in a long day." Morgan said. "Did Kristy tell you anything new?" 

"Uh, yeah. She said that she's been home alone for three days, which would mean that the unsub picks girls for each day specifically or Kristy would have been snatched days ago." Reid said.

"Which supports…" Morgan inquired.

"That he has a detailed plan, detailed long before he ever did something. He's been planning this for some time and as long as the plan isn't interfered with, he most likely won't do anything more than he already has. Of course, with Cora and Haley, that's not that much of a comfort." Reid said. 

"It would also most likely mean that he'll quit sometime soon too. He can't possibly have girls planned for that long." Morgan said.

Reid nodded. "Let's hope." He added.

"Kristy said that she thought that there weren't anymore girls that could be targeted. Although she knows more than us, we have to be prepared in case there's someone she didn't consider…" Reid said.

"Hey, I'm going to go tell this to Gideon. Maybe it'll help him with this master plan for tomorrow." Morgan replied.

"So you don't have a clue as to why we're going either?"

"Well, all I can figure is that Gideon wants to figure out why he chose the lake." Morgan said.

"Can you ask Gideon something else?"

"Sure."

"I asked Kristy if she wanted to come with. I think she might help us." Reid started to say.

"Two geniuses…" Morgan said with a smile.

Reid returned with a look.

"She knows so much and she doesn't realize it. I think she'll really help us. It's a gut feeling. Can you just check to make sure that it's okay?" Reid asked.

"Yeah. Bye." Morgan said as he turned out of the room.

'Why is it so cold in this stupid place?' Reid thought angrily as he went to turn on the heater at full blast after Morgan shut the door. He changed, and almost made it to the bed without collapsing from dizziness.

It felt so good to rest his head on the pillow. However, sleep would not come. His brain would not completely shut off, leaving him to toss and turn until Morgan returned.

"Whoa, it's a sauna in here." He said looking at Reid who was covered under the blankets. "A little cold?" Morgan teased.

"Mmmm." Was Reid's exhaustion filled response. He poked his head out of the blankets to see Morgan turn down the heater.

"Whoa, Reid. Your cheeks are really red…" Morgan said.

'What?' Reid thought. He got up and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, he was flushed. Reid also noticed that he was sweating too, but he felt cold and clammy.

"Whoa, are you sure you're okay?" Morgan asked with a worry filled voice.

"Yes, I'm fine. Don't you trust me?" Reid asked in an agitated voice.

"Of course. But you do look sick. I know JJ has some aspirin and other things if you need them. I can go grab them from her." Morgan offered.

"No!" Reid shot out fast. He had used Dilaudid only a day and half before; it required at least two days to get out of his system and if he took more drugs the results could turn disastrous. "Thanks, but I'll be fine. I just got to go sleep." Reid said hastily.

Reid wandered over to his bed and crawled in. He heard Morgan sigh.

"By the way, Gideon was pleased with everything we said. And he's okay with Kristy coming." Morgan told Reid as he was about to shut off the last light a few minutes later.

Reid hated alienating Morgan. He was his friend, no matter how much he teased him. It wasn't like he had never had friends before; none of them had ever been as good to him as Morgan though.

A little while later Reid heard Morgan snore. Sleep wasn't coming to him at all.

'Dilaudid causes insomnia and drowsiness. How convenient.' Reid thought angrily. 'I haven't slept this bad in so long. Then again, I haven't had to sleep a night without it for almost a month.'

Luckily, sleep did come, fitfully and after many hours.

Morgan shook Reid awake early the next morning. He got ready and they got ready to leave. Reid tried to dress warmly, but the weather was hard to handle.

Down in the lobby, the rest of the team was waiting. They piled into two separate SUV's. Reid rode with Morgan and Hotch.

At the hospital, Kristy stood anxiously waiting. Reid laughed when they arrived because she nearly ran them over to get out.

"Kristy, hold up." Reid instructed her. "These are the other two members of the team, Agents Hotchner and Gideon."

Hotch and Gideon shook her hand and then went off to talk to a doctor. They wanted to clarify that it was all right to take her.

"Uh, Ms. Jaraeu, Ms. Prentiss, I am sorry about the attitude I gave you yesterday." Kristy apologized.

"Don't worry about it. And call me JJ. Ms, Jaraeu makes me sound old." JJ said.

"Okay. Anything you want me to call you?" Kristy asked turning to Emily.

"Uh, Emily or Prentiss is fine." Emily said.

"And use Morgan for me." Morgan chipped in.

Kristy nodded. Hotch and Gideon returned.

"Kristy, it's okay to take you as long as your parents have cleared it. According to the nurse you talked to your mother. Did she clear it?" Hotch asked sternly.

"Yes. She said it's all right for me to leave the hospital." Kristy replied.

"All right, let's go." Gideon said.

Kristy was very talkative during the ride.

"What are we looking for?" She asked as the pulled out of Watertown.

"Something as to why he uses the lake as the connection." Hotch explained uneasily.

Reid knew that Hotch wasn't sold on the idea of involving a victim so much in an investigation. However, Kristy so far was their only lead which is why Reid wanted her along. Most likely, the unsub mentioned about the lake as he was taking her and that could be the trigger.

Of course, Reid didn't tell Kristy this. He didn't want her to actively search for something from the lake to be the trigger, and he was also afraid that if something from the lake was the trigger that she would hate it because of that.

"Well, if he owns a house, then you're kind of screwed on that. The lake's not exactly big; he can live fairly close to all of us." Kristy replied.

"Yes, but because we haven't found anyone who owns lake property he most likely doesn't. How much public access is there on the lake?" Hotch inquired turning onto the interstate.

"There's a public boat launch and there's the state park." Kristy replied.

"Anything else?" Morgan asked.

"Well, there's a bar and a restaurant, but I don't think he'd be pissed over something with that. What does drive someone to do something like this all of a sudden?" Kristy asked.

"Every unsub has a different stresser or something that makes them explode and take their revenge. Because the unsub appears older, we think it was something in his past." Reid explained.

"So this could have happened years ago, but he's mad now?" Kristy asked with her eyebrows way up.

"Yeah." Reid replied.

"Is there something that you would want revenge for because of the lake?" Hotch asked.

Kristy sighed.

"I don't know. If it's about a power struggle, then I would be mad about accidents. But I suppose if I pissed at the lake, it wouldn't be boating accidents. Those are caused by bad drivers. That leaves accidents from this time of year." Kristy replied.

"You mean with the ice?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah. Some people are real idiots and go out on it with vehicles and stuff this time of year." Kristy said.

"I don't think I would ever go out on a frozen lake with a vehicle." Reid replied.

Morgan and Kristy laughed.

"You only need four inches of ice to support a vehicle." Kristy said.

"Four? Yeah right." Reid replied.

"You're a genius, you should know that." Morgan said.

"I know that four inches of ice can support quite a lot of weight but not quite that much." Reid said. He stared out the window and looked at the mountains of snow everywhere. "Did you know that the Eskimos of Alaska had over 70 different words for snow?"

Morgan smiled, and even Hotch let out a rare little smile. They had heard Reid spout off a random, useless fact in a long time and it was nice.

"Kristy, the directions the cop gave us were wrong I think. He said to take the next exit." Hotch began.

"That's right." Kristy said.

"Well, why are we still on the road then?" Hotch inquired.

Kristy laughed.

"Agent Hotchner, you still have about 10 more miles until we hit that exit." She replied.

Everyone except her got a strange look on their face.

"Is it normal to go this far without exits?" Morgan asked her.

"No, not even in South Dakota. There's just no where to go between Watertown and the Lakewood exit. After that, I think it's every few miles. Wait no, the road from Brookings to Sioux Falls has some pretty big stretches." Kristy explained.

Morgan and Hotch looked extremely mystified by this bit of culture.

"This is South Dakota. We do things a little bit different." Kristy said with a smile.

The next part of the trip passed in silence. Reid continued to stare out his window. The prairie was beautiful; Reid had never seen anything quite like it. In his four years at the BAU, he had been to most of the major cities in the US and lots of small towns in lots of states, but they had hardly been to such a place.

Hotch made it off the interstate and turned towards Lakewood. The closer they got to Lakewood, the more Kristy began to point out special features of the land. She knew many of the farms and places around them.

They approached Lakewood but drove on by to make it to Lake Cooper. As it turned out, there actually was a Lake Wood, which is how the town derived its name. They drove on past that too as they more into the South Dakota countryside.

Out here, Reid could see the effects of the recent snowstorm. The roads were far more dangerous and Hotch had to really slow down in order to make it through. Reid was quite happy when they finally approached the lake and Kristy began to instruct Hotch to the public access.

The other vehicle had gone to the park, although they expected little there because someone would have been reported for being at the park in the winter.

"It's really an interesting feeling. The same place that I helped little kids fish last summer is possibly the same spot where a crazy guy came to contemplate harming teenage girls." Kristy said with a wry smile. Reid replied with the same wry smile.

They were walking along the path that connected the dock to the road. Seeing nothing, Reid returned back to Hotch and Morgan who had checked the surrounding area while Kristy stayed behind.

"Anything?" Hotch asked when they returned.

Reid shook his head. He began to look down at the ground as Morgan and Hotch discussed different aspects to death.

"Do these tracks look similar to you?" Reid asked suddenly.

Morgan and Hotch looked down. Sure enough, there was only one set of tracks that covered the ground and looked very similar.

"These look like a lot of times to drive through here." Morgan said.

"It snowed, what Thursday?" Reid asked.

"Yeah, started Thursday night and ended Friday." Hotch said.

"Well, since it's Tuesday, then these tracks are all from the last four days." Reid said.

"I count at least three distinct paths." Hotch said. "Maybe four."

"Which means he came here everyday." Morgan said.

"I'll call the Watertown PD to see if they can send some CSI's. Maybe we can a vehicle." Hotch said. He whipped out his cell, but his face fell into disgust. "No service."

"Hey, Kristy" Reid called to which she turned around, "how do you get cell service?"

Kristy looked around.

"Climb up that hill and you might get a signal." She said walking towards them.

Hotch sighed and turned.

"What'd you find?" Kristy asked anxiously when she returned.

"Tire tracks. A lot of them." Morgan said.

"These ones?" Kristy asked.

"Yeah." Morgan answered.

Kristy started to follow them. Reid had assumed that they would have stopped once they met the ice but it appeared they didn't.

"They go on for a ways. There was somewhere specific he was going." Kristy said.

She took off onto the lake.

"Kristy!" Reid called following her. "It's 33 degrees outside; you need to get off the ice!"

Morgan took after Reid. Kristy was far ahead but she wasn't moving fast. They quickly caught up with her.

"Reid, you of all people should know that water is the slowest to cool down and warm up. The ice is at least 5 inches thick; we could drive out here if we wanted to." Kristy replied. "We're fine."

"You do realize that we're working a case that could involve an accident involving ice?" Morgan asked uneasily.

"Dramatic irony." Kristy replied.

She started to pick up her pace which was a problem for Reid. His feet didn't like it, and he was slipping a lot. Kristy suddenly stopped so suddenly that Reid did fall. He quickly recovered.

"This is where it happened. The tracks stop here." Kristy said.

They were almost in the middle of the lake. Reid could see almost everything.

"This is an ideal ice fishing spot." Kristy said.

"Supports the ice fishing accident theory." Reid said.

"So we've narrowed it down to a guy who is upset over an ice fishing accident and works in a hospital?" Morgan asked.

Reid nodded and sighed. Morgan and Reid tried to find something else specific about this spot but nothing turned up.

They headed back to the shore where Hotch was waiting. The others had nothing which didn't surprise them. Hotch also talked to the Watertown PD and they said that snow wouldn't be able to give them much. Realizing that there was not much left to find, the team began to head back to Watertown.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent going through files upon files.

Occasionally, Reid took breaks to add more Kristy's profile. He was beginning to have ideas about what would trigger a flashback and he had been dropping hints into conversations, but so far nothing had happened.

He thoroughly enjoyed taking these breaks. Kristy was very honest with him. It was something that Reid hadn't felt lately.

'Not that I deserve it.' He thought to himself every time he felt angered by this. However, her honesty helped Reid feel more comfortable around her, and he even found himself telling her things that he didn't tell most people.

The search parties had gone out for Ana again but they had gotten nothing. The unsub would have planted her in a secure building, most likely more secure than the last one. This led the BAU team to believe that the only way to find the place was to find the unsub.

"Any luck?" Kristy asked Reid as he returned again mid afternoon.

Reid shook his head sadly. Kristy sighed.

"Kristy, if you want to leave or something…" Reid began.

"No. I want to stay here and help." Kristy said with force.

"Kristy, you do understand that there's not a 100 that this will even work, right?" Reid asked.

"I understand. I won't let that happen though." Kristy said.

Her stubbornness indicated that her trigger was something she thought about often. So far, she had mentioned her friends and her grades. Reid kept the conversation heading towards that direction until Morgan interrupted a little while later.

"Hey, Reid, can I talk to you for a sec?" Morgan asked tensely.

Worry was written all over Morgan's face. Reid had no clue what Morgan was going to say but Reid's gut had a feeling. Reid stood up to leave.

"He got another girl. She's only 12." Morgan whispered.

"Dammit. How?" Reid asked.

"Who did he get?" Kristy asked.

Morgan and Reid stared at her flabbergasted.

"Could you hear us?" Morgan asked.

"No. Who did he get?" Kristy asked again. She stared at Morgan coldly; she wasn't taking no for an answer.

"Sara Shenken." Morgan replied.

"Wait…" Reid began but Kristy beat him to it.

"That's Ana's sister!" Kristy yelled. "How? How on Earth could he have gotten her? Surely she's been watched all day."

"Apparently not. Look, we have to go." Morgan replied.

"Kristy, don't worry, I'll fill you in later." Reid promised. "Her parents wouldn't have let her go alone, her sister is missing. Something's not right." Reid said as they entered the hallway.

"Her parents didn't want her in the middle of the turmoil at home. They sent her to her aunt's house. She was outside playing basketball. Her aunt was in the shower and didn't notice." Morgan said. "What I don't get is why Kristy didn't think she could be a victim."

"I told Kristy that they probably wouldn't be younger than Rachael. Sara's 12." Reid said.

"She knew that?" Morgan asked.

"She knows the birth date of every kid in her grade." Reid replied.

It was true; it was one of Kristy's many quirks.

"What's going on?" Reid asked.

"Well, now they think it's best to inform the media. In an hour, JJ will hold a press conference. He's taken two girls with the FBI preset; this guy is very motivated and very organized. He's too dangerous to not let others know." Morgan said.

Reid nodded in agreement.

"Until then, they're doubling the search parties. We've checked all the other families to see if they're other children would be targeted. All of the other girls had siblings but all of them were no longer living at home or didn't fit the profile. Until then, all we can do is what we've been doing." Morgan said.

They walked back into the conference room. Emily and Hotch were still pouring over files and Gideon was posting their information about Sara. JJ was gone; Reid assumed she was getting ready.

Reid looked around at all of the evidence surrounding him.

"Hotch, how many tracks did you think you found?" Reid asked.

"Four possibly. Why?" Hotch asked.

"Well, if this is the same guy, then he would have gone back." Reid said. "How long has she been missing?"

"45 minutes." Emily said.

"Then if he goes before, he would have already gone. But if he makes a pit stop on the way to the new site…" Reid said.

"We're heading out." Hotch said as he picked up on Reid's thinking.

"Reid stay here with JJ. Call the Lakewood police and send them ahead of us. If he goes after he gets the girl, they'll catch him before we do. And work with Kristy. She's a lot closer than any of these files." Gideon ordered as he, Hotch, Emily, and Morgan walked out.

Reid did as he was told. He was about to walk back to the room where Kristy was staying when he met up with JJ. She definitely looked different; her hair was done and makeup had been applied all over her face. Reid didn't think she needed it; he always thought she was beautiful.

"Hey." He greeted her.

"Hey Spence. What's going on? No one's around." She asked.

"They went back to Lake Cooper. They wanted to see if the unsub left tracks again." Reid replied. "How are things going?"

"Okay. We have to wait a while; apparently, the 'local' news stations are over an hour away." JJ said with a laugh.

Reid laughed.

"Agents?" A local cop called behind JJ. "Where is the press conference taking place?"

She turned around to see what the cop wanted. Reid learned very painfully that JJ had also changed her shoes to some very thin, very sharp high heels. Her left foot planted down directly between his bog toe and second toe on his right foot. Now, this should have been considered lucky considering that the heel did not actually hit his foot.

However, when that area is used to insert a needle full of a highly addictive opiate where no one would notice, shoving a heel in between there is very painful. So painful, Reid had to gasp.

"Spence? What happened?" JJ asked after she had answered the cop's question about the press conference. She looked down at her foot and saw where it had landed. "Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry, are you all right? Did I get you bad?" JJ stammered as she quickly stepped off his foot.

"I'm fine." Reid said, desperately hiding the lie. His foot felt like it was on fire. "I have to go talk to Kristy…" He said, getting away from JJ as fast as he could.

"Okay." She said quietly.

Reid limped into the little interrogation room behind him and sat down. She looked up.

"Any news?" Kristy asked.

Reid shook his head. Luckily, the pain was diminishing and he could think again.

"Kristy, was there any other reason why you didn't choose Sara?" Reid asked trying to make everything appear normal.

"Well, the age thing. And because I thought this guy would take two girls from one family." Kristy said sadly. "I was wrong. And now I'm guilty."

"What? You couldn't have predicted that this was going to happen." Reid said quickly.

"I could have told you to watch her. Maybe you would have caught him in the act, and you would have gotten him, and you could have found Ana. Now their parents have lost their two children. What if he does something to them?" Kristy asked.

"Kristy, you are not responsible for this. The only person who is, is the person who did this. You've got a pretty strong alibi; you're not exactly a suspect." Reid replied.

Kristy laughed. Then she began to cry.

"I'm sorry. I'm just really worried. I've racked my brain; I can't think of any other teenage, pre-teen, or any other girl associated with the lake. I just want to get this sick bastard." Kristy said wiping her tears.

Reid was selfishly glad she had gotten over that; comforting the victims hadn't ever been his strong suit. Kristy pulled herself together and they tried again. Once again, the memory would not present itself. Kristy had told Reid her darkest secrets, her greatest moments, and almost everything in between. Nothing would trigger it.

As scheduled, the press conference took place an hour later. Shortly after, Hotch called to say that they had been too late. Now, all of the tracks had been cleared, including the previous ones. While this meant that the unsub had indeed been there because the plows hadn't, it also meant that they didn't have a starting point.

The day carried on the same as it had before; the search parties found nothing, the BAU had gone over every ice fishing accident in the last 10-30 years ago and found no leads. Reid talked more and more to Kristy. The memory didn't come.

The only good news they received was that they would be able to talk to Officer Matt Heiden tomorrow morning. He thought he would be able to slip away long enough.

Kristy had left at 9:30 because she couldn't drive after 10:00 p.m. Or as she put it, she wasn't supposed to. Reid could hardly believe that she even had a driver's license. Apparently in South Dakota, you only had to be 14 years old to start applying.

Reid was walking back to the conference room when he met Morgan on the way.

"Hey. Hotch called it a night." Morgan said.

"What? It's still really early." Reid said.

"Yeah, but there's nothing more we can do. The search parties haven't gotten a thing. We've looked into every person at that hospital. Garcia's run background checks on every database she can get her hands on. And we still have nothing." Morgan said, obviously exasperated.

"So we're waiting on the cop?" Reid asked as he and Morgan began to walk out.

"Yeah. Who knows, maybe he'll give us the unsub." Morgan said with a laugh.

Reid laughed too. They were silent for a few minutes. Reid was thankful that he was done for tonight. He was letting the symptoms that had plagued him all day shine through now that it was only him and Morgan. The fatigue, nausea, and other side effects were all floating through him.

"So, you actually gonna sleep tonight?" Morgan asked later as he climbed into bed.

"Huh?" Reid asked.

"I heard you last night. Tossing and turning like crazy." Morgan said.

"I heard you last night too. Only you were snoring like crazy." Reid recovered.

Thankfully, Morgan took it as a joke and laughed.

"Least I slept. Reid, you're not having nightmares, are you?"

'Every night.'

"No."

"Sure? You've looked really tired lately."

"Yeah. I just haven't been feeling too great lately. Just a bug, it'll pass in a few days." Reid lied efficiently.

Morgan bought it. Or at least, he quieted down.

They walked out of the building and got into an SUV. Reid sat down and began to look forward to his night of sleep. However, after a few minutes, he came to the realization that he wasn't going to go to sleep again tonight.

'I can't keep doing this.' He thought desperately to himself. He began to form an idea.

"Welcome to Walgreens. How may I help you?"

This was how the pharmacist greeted him. Reid was very lucky. He was lucky that Morgan and Gideon had believed him when he asked to go to the pharmacy quick to get something for his imaginary bug. He was lucky that they had decided to wait in the car. He was lucky that pharmacies like Walgreens were open until 10 and it happened to be 9:45. He was also lucky that the pharmacist was young. Young enough to be fooled. Just young enough.

"Hi. My name is Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm with the FBI." Reid said showing his badge, stressing 'Dr.' and 'FBI'.

"Wow, uh, what can I do for you?" he asked.

"Well, I know this is a strange request, but I need to get some medications." Reid said.

"Well, just give me the prescription and I'll get them." The pharmacist replied with a "I'm-here-to-help" smile.

"Well, uh, you see that's where I have a problem. I don't have a prescription." Reid replied as the pharmacist raised his eyebrows. "We're in town working on a local case and we're sort of in a jam. I know that you're not supposed to give them to me unless I have a prescription, but I really need them."

"Well, if you need me to get them for you, then you need a prescription." The pharmacist replied shyly.

'Damn' Reid thought. "Uh, well then, thank you, I guess." He turned around and began to walk away.

"Wait! You said you were a doctor, right?" the pharmacist asked.

'Yes!'

"Uh, yes." Reid answered confused.

"And you're with the FBI?" he asked.

'Yes!'

"Yes." Reid replied more confidently.

"Well, what exactly do you need?" The pharmacist asked, breaking.

"Dilaudid in the liquid form." Reid said quietly.

The pharmacist looked very pensive for a few moments. Then he looked up.

"I think I can do that." The pharmacist replied.

A half hour later, Reid crumpled into his hotel bed. Once again, he had been very lucky. He was lucky that Morgan and Gideon hadn't noticed a thing. He was lucky that the skin on his foot had not been that sorely hurt by JJ's shoe. But most of all, Reid felt lucky because he had finally fulfilled his craving.

'In the sickest way possible.' He thought wryly to himself as he drifted off into his much anticipated sleep.

----------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Okay, I don't know how plausible that last scene is. I don't know if a person really would just hand out liquid heroin to a person because they were with the FBI. I know I would. I do know that it is possible to get liquid Dilaudid at Walgreens, not that I use it, I just know that.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thank you so much for the awesome reviews!!!! I was once again hit with writer's block, but now that I am through this chapter, the fun will soon begin. cue evil laughter.

And oh yeah, I don't own Criminal Minds. This sad thought ends evil laughter.

Reid awoke the next morning groggy but much more rested than the night before. Morgan was almost ready to head out. It had been decided that Hotch and he were the best to handle talking to the cop, being the most experienced as cops.

Reid took his place at the police station an hour later, looking over the same files, same people again.

"Officer Matt Heiden?" Morgan questioned the man that approached him.

As a precaution to the case he was working, Hotch and Morgan had to meet Heiden near the apartment where he was currently staying. They had dressed down to street clothes and were given a photo to recognize him by, but that hadn't proved to be the most useful. Heiden had skillfully disguised himself to look just like he belonged on the streets and nothing like his cop self.

"Hey, out here, just Hide. That's what I'm called by the thugs. If you must, you can call me Matt, but no officer." He replied hastily.

"What kind of case you working?" Hotch inquired.

"Possibly a huge bust. There's a gang that's getting out of control that's also really into their drugs. Marijuana mostly, some heavier stuff too. A leak came forward in exchange for protection, and they brought me in. They could easily make me look the part, so they did. I've made small appearances over the last few months, but they haven't shown me any drugs. They've been building the trust slowly, considering they think I'm just a kid. Tonight, there's a chance I'll see something." Heiden replied. "What was so important you needed to see me? If this blows my cover…"

"Calm down." Morgan commanded. "You still look the part, and we don't look like cops either. You'll be fine."

"The other night, you were picking up a shift for the local PD, right?" Hotch asked.

"Yea. Nothing more I could do until I went out. I was too pumped on adrenaline to finally get these guys, and I needed to calm down." Heiden replied. "They sent me out to cover the streets."

"What do you remember about the call to the Subway?" Hotch asked.

"With that girl? She was raped, wasn't she?" Heiden asked.

Morgan and Hotch exchanged a look.

"No. She was drugged, kidnapped, and left in the building-" Morgan started.

"And then she went over to the Subway. I responded to the call alone. I talked to the employee at Subway. According to her, the girl walked in with her clothes torn, half out of it, and pretty shook up. I assumed that she had been raped, and she had been drugged. When I went over to her, she was fairly out of it. And around here, our units all sort of blend together at times. I know what GHB looks like." Heiden replied hastily.

"Did you ask her what happened?" Morgan asked.

"Yea, but she had no clue. Like I said, I assumed it was a rape. I checked out the building that she said she woke up in. I walked in, and saw evidence everywhere. I figured it would be an easy case, find the DNA and get the guy. The scene was messy and there were hairs and fingerprints everywhere; I figured he would probably already be in the system. I called my CSI buddy, and he came over. He got what I needed as I talked to the girl. I tried to get her to ID the guy by starting off with the local sex offender registry. When he gave me a ton of DNA samples, I left to get it tested." Heiden replied.

"You got DNA?" Hotch asked shocked.

"Yeah."

"Then why don't we have it?" Morgan asked.

"Because it never made it to the lab. I was at the scene later than I expected, and I had to get ready. I had to move out at 6 to meet the informant so we could work on everything we needed. Another friend of mine came over to finish the scene. I took the DNA because I had figured that I could drop it off lab. It turned out I couldn't." Heiden replied shamefully.

"So why didn't you CSI friend say anything about the DNA?" Hotch asked.

This didn't make sense; two other cops knew about the DNA but no one else did. Surely they would have gotten it from Heiden, there wasn't really even a good reason for him to have it in the first place. Heiden sighed.

"Because all I asked him to do was process the scene. After he was done, he headed home." Heiden said. "But, why are you guys coming after me? Surely that girl is okay."

"She is. The others aren't." Hotch replied curtly.

"Others?" Heiden asked.

"Matt, she wasn't raped. She was abducted, and she would have been beaten severely if she hadn't gotten away. The man who did this to her, he also took four other girls before her. Two are still in comas, and the other two have woken up as of this morning. Neither can remember a thing from the last few days. He's taken two more girls since, and we don't know where they are. They're probably being beaten now. And if he keeps up at this pattern, he could take another girl today." Hotch said.

"Oh my gosh." Heiden said shocked. "I had no idea. I didn't hear anything, I just processed the scene with my buddy. I thought it would so easy; just a simple rape."

Morgan and Hotch nodded.

"So what did you tell the other cop who came to finish the scene?" Hotch asked.

"Just that I thought it was possibly a rape. I didn't say anything about the DNA. My main priority was to get out of there on time. I figured if it was just a rape, a few days wouldn't hurt it. Didn't think too much about it, I guess. Goll, I was so stupid." Heiden said.

"Heiden, do you still have the DNA?" Hotch asked.

"Yeah. It's in my car, which is parked at the station." Heiden replied.

Morgan jumped on his cell phone. Heiden turned to Hotch.

"You said you guys were cops? You don't look local." Heiden asked.

"We're not. We're from the FBI, Behavioral Analysis Unit." Hotch replied quietly as he was looked around. He was pissed about the cop's stupidity, but he knew he shouldn't endanger him when he was undercover. "Why didn't you check the building right away?"

"Didn't think I'd have to. I figured it was empty." Heiden replied growing more embarrassed by the moment.

"They're sending out someone to get it." Morgan stated as he joined them again.

Heiden looked extremely uncomfortable. He was beginning to realize just how much damage this could do to him.

"Listen, I think it's best that you guys leave now before someone sees something." Heiden said suddenly.

"First, is there anything else that we need to know?" Hotch asked in his sternest voice possible.

"No. I swear. That's all that happened." Heiden said.

"Hide, who're these guys?" Someone suddenly called from behind.

A thug walked towards them.

"It's okay Zack. They're cops." Heiden replied quietly. "This is Zack; he's our informant."

Hotch and Morgan nodded their hellos.

"Hey man, we gotta go." Zack replied.

"Okay." Heiden said to Zack. He turned to Hotch and Morgan. "I'm really, really sorry. I know it's not much comfort."

"No, it's not." Hotch replied walking back to the car.

"What have we got?" Hotch asked as he stormed into the conference room.

"The DNA we found is being processed now. We sent some to Garcia just incase we need to run it through a bigger database." JJ replied.

"Hotch, how did we get DNA?" Emily asked.

"Long story. Essentially, the cop that's going to become famous for a major drug bust thought he could solve two cases at once. Meant to get the DNA here, but never made it." Morgan replied.

Reid was mad that there was DNA. If there was and they found the guy off something so simple, there never really had been any use for the BAU being there in the first place. All that hard work, all that effort, wasted.

'And what happened last night.' Reid thought.

Now that he had finally been able to sleep, he realized what he had convinced the pharmacist to do. He had used his technical status as a doctor and the fact that he was a federal agent to get him to do something, well, illegal. Reid's conscience could hardly take the moral tug of his addiction.

Then again, if the DNA brought back someone, the team could go back home. Then Reid wouldn't have to worry about it.

At that moment, a young cop came to the door.

"Excuse me, agent Reid? There's a girl here to see you." He said.

"Go Reid!" Morgan said playfully, causing Reid to turn bright red.

"She said that she's working with you on the case." The officer said.

"It's Kristy." Reid simply said. "Should I tell her we found DNA?" Reid asked Gideon.

"You can tell her. She'll want to know. If we get a match, then it's best that she knows right away. If we don't, we'll have to keep going for the memory." Gideon replied.

"You got DNA? So, it's almost over?" Kristy asked excitedly. Reid was with her in the interrogation room that they were using yesterday.

"Well, we need to get a match, and if we do then, yes, it is all over." Reid replied. He couldn't help but smile. It was as it Kristy's smile was contagious. She was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Is there a high chance of that?" Kristy replied.

"All depends. It'll take a while before they find out here if they got a match. We sent a sample to an analyst back in Quantico, and she has a larger database in case he did something in a different place. We'll have to wait until then." Reid explained.

Kristy nodded. Suddenly, the smile disappeared from her face, and her eyes became wide.

"Reid, what if he gets someone else before then? What if he takes another girl?"

Reid became very uncomfortable.

"Well, if we find who he is, we can usually find where he's taken them pretty quickly. So far, we don't think that he will take anyone else, but we're planning like he is going too just in case. We've checked all of the families of the other girls and we haven't found any other girls at risk. Do you think you know any other girls?" Reid asked.

Kristy shook her head. "I looked at the Lake Cooper directory last night, but every girl that could possibly be the next victim wouldn't have been at the lake recently. They all live in bigger cities and don't come out for any other reason than to party in the summer." Kristy replied. "And if there isn't a match…?" 

"Well, then we have a sample to compare a suspect's to." Reid replied.

"So, we should probably work on the memory?" Kristy asked.

"Yeah." Reid replied.

Kristy flopped down in her chair and began to take off her shoes, which Reid stared at. She looked up and laughed.

"Might as well be comfortable." She replied.

Reid smiled and sat down.

"So, where exactly in my life story did we leave off?" Kristy asked sarcastically.

"Kristy, what do you want to be when you get older?" Reid asked. It was something that they had touched on, but Reid wanted to really get to understand it.

"Well, this year it's middle school social studies teacher." Kristy replied.

"Why?" Reid asked.

"Because social studies is not taught the way it should be and I want to change that. Social Studies is the study of human behavior, but in schools today it's ancient history or geography. However, we can apply social studies to these subjects. I mean, instead of teaching that King Henry VIII had an affair with Anne Boleyn, we should teach why it happened and its impact. His drive was that he wanted a son, in other words greed. While this is natural to all human beings, many people don't know its impact on religion today. King Henry VIII helped create the separation from the Catholic church, something that happened before Martin Luther. He needed to get away from the church so he could divorce his wife. Now, Martin Luther was an important player later on." Kristy replied.

Reid was staring, again. Kristy smiled.

"Social studies should be the study of human behavior. If people understand human behavior, they have great power. One problem we have today is not understanding others. I want these students to learn how to do that and I can do that through history. Winston Churchill said "The farther back we look, the farther ahead we see" and that's not accepted too much these days. I want to change that. Does that answer your question?" She finished.

"I think so." Reid joked.

It was so strange to hear Kristy talk about such things. This was often how Reid felt about why he wanted to join the BAU. He wanted to understand people and use that to help others. It was hard in these cases when he bad guy kept winning to remember that.

Kristy sighed.

"What?" Reid asked surprised.

"It's just so strange to pour your heart to someone. My mother doesn't even know that I want to be a teacher. She thinks I need to go to Harvard Law or some Ivy League school and become a lawyer." Kristy replied. "Here, you know all of my secrets. I have to keep reminding myself not to lie. You're going to be gone when this all over."

"Lie?" Reid asked nervously. "Kristy, have you lied to me at all?"

"No." Kristy said indiginatly.

"Have you recently?" Reid asked.

"What's recently?" Kristy asked quietly.

"Since Sunday."

"Uh, to my mother." Kristy replied.

"How often do you lie to your mother?" Reid asked slowly.

Kristy got a very big look of shame on her face.

"Please remember that I am a teenager, a very private teenager with a mother who can be quite nosy." Kristy said hastily.

"How often?" Reid repeated.

Kristy sighed.

"Damn near every other thing I tell her." She replied. "Why?"

Reid sighed. "This might cause complications to your memory. If the trigger is a thought, then a lie could have screwed your brain up and tricked it into thinking that the lie is the truth. Were you thinking about any lies that night?"

The shame intensified.

"Yeah. Me and my friend rented an R-rated movie that my mother would never approve of. I was trying to think of some other title to tell her." Kristy replied.

"Is that it?" Reid asked.

"You're going to have to give me some time on that one. I try to be a good person, but I'm pretty terrible when it comes to lying." Kristy replied.

After giving her some time to think, they continued their conversation for a while longer. It was obvious to Reid that she was getting tired of this, especially now that they were moving onto such things as her lies. He just prayed that her brain hadn't manifested something to be the trigger, because then there might be something that Kristy wouldn't think of because it wouldn't make sense.

He was surprised it had taken this long; she should have remembered at least something by now. Usually, the trigger was just a word, and as long as she said it, the memory should come back. Their topics had been so diverse Reid was amazed that it hadn't come back yet.

'Then again, the English language has over one million words.' Reid reminded himself.

Reid walked into the conference room a little while later. Everyone was tense. There was not a lot to do. The DNA test came back negative for both the local database and Garcia. Now, everyone was waiting for his next move, because nothing else was working. Search parties turned up nothing. It was incredibly frustrating.

"Anything?" Hotch asked.

Reid shook his head sadly. "Anything here?"

"No. There haven't been any reported missing girls." He replied.

"Yet." Reid said cynically.

However, Reid turned out to be wrong, something he was not used to. The day passed slowly and quietly. Kristy left in the early evening after a long day. The rest of the team had tried to find a connection between the hospital personnel and Lake Cooper, but the same nothingness turned up. At 9:00, no girls had been reported missing.

"I don't get it." Morgan finally said. "He quit. He wasn't scared in the last two days, but now he quit."

"Well, most likely each girl was picked ahead of time. Maybe his plan was to stop there." Hotch said.

"But why stop? Why only these girls?" JJ asked.

"Well, Kristy did think that there weren't any other girls that would fit the profile. Maybe these were the only people he wanted." Reid said.

"No." Gideon said. "It's not about the number of girls fitting the reason. The reason fit the girls."

"So, if this guy had his reason for revenge, picked these girls, then there could be something significant about the number." Emily said.

"Well, there were seven girls." Hotch said.

"Seven is often considered a lucky and important number. There are seven days in a week, it's often used in religious works such as the Bible." Reid said, almost going into a rant.

"This is for revenge. Seven means something in the accident. Have Garcia check into accidents with high incidences of seven." Gideon ordered.

Morgan grabbed his cell and left.

"Do you realize what time it is?" Garcia answered Morgan's call. He smiled.

"Well, here it's nine thirty." He replied.

"And here, it's ten thirty. I was going to go to bed early for once." She replied.

"Oh, come on mama. I need you to do one more search for me." Morgan teased.

"You owe me when you get back. And please make it soon, the office is lonely without your presence." Garcia replied.

"Yes Ma'am. Can you do a search of all the ice fishing accidents involving the number seven?" Morgan asked.

"Okay that is really random." Garcia said.

"Yes, but it still needs to be done." Morgan retorted.

"Do not undermine my amazing abilities. I'm already on it, and there we go." Garcia said, finishing the last part slowly. "I went for two or more sevens, and I have found, well, would you look at that?"

"Little hard Garcia. We're a few thousand miles apart." Morgan replied.

"I found seven." Garcia replied with a laugh.

"Great. Send over the list please." Morgan said.

"Just so you know, the hot tub is still waiting." Garcia replied evilly.

"Don't tempt me woman. We still have to get the guy." Morgan replied.

"Oh, all right. But don't forget, you still owe me!" Garcia retorted as they hung up.

"Okay, Garcia is sending over a list." Morgan stated as he walked back into the room.

"How many did we narrow it down to?" Hotch asked.

"Seven." Morgan said as Garcia's fax printed out.

Hotch pulled the list out.

"We've already looked into all of these cases. We didn't find anything." Hotch said.

"Then we're missing something." Gideon said.

"What is there? All he needs is a connection to the lake and has to work at the hospital." Emily said.

"He maybe could have had an accomplice." Morgan ventured.

"Or maybe he works higher in authority that we thought." Reid chipped in.

"Or he might not have something specifically with an ice fishing incident." JJ stated.

"No. We weren't wrong about the profile." Gideon said over their entire conversation. "This kind of person does work alone, he has a menial job, and he is specific, very specific about his revenge, why he does it, and everything about it. The answer is in the seven cases. This man is smart enough that we have to look as deep as possible." Gideon said. "He's quit for a reason. Now we need to determine why he started."

"Gideon, we won't be able to do that tonight." Hotch reasoned with him.

"Then we do tomorrow." Gideon said walking out of the room.

Hotch sighed.

"We're close. We're almost done." He reassured everyone else as they got ready to leave.

Reid went back to his routine that night with the Dilaudid. He hated how he needed it on a case, but he couldn't handle it.

'Maybe I should tell Gideon.' Reid thought as he waited for Morgan to get out of the bathroom so he could enter and fulfill his need. 'No, what good will it do? I can still function. If the team can't notice, then I must be fine. There's no need for them to know.' Reid repeated to himself.

Morgan came out of the bathroom to which Reid went in.

His mind began to float back to memories again as he went through his routine morning. This time it went back to Ethan. Ethan had said that if he knew, his team would. But they hadn't. They didn't expect it. They wouldn't believe it. They would be hurt. Reid didn't want to burden them.

With that going through his brain, he shoved the depressor down and let the drug back into his body.

A/N: Once again, please Review!!!


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thank you again for the awesome reviews! Like I said, this was very fun to write, but the next chapter will be even more fun, evil giggle.

And of course, you should have known by now that I don't own Criminal Minds. In the next chapter you will see how this screws up the timeline set forth by the real writers, so I obviously don't have any control over the real show.

* * *

The next morning was met with little anticipation from the team. The seven cases that they were going through for the umpteenth time were not turning up anything. Everyone was getting snippy and restless, which suited Reid just fine because then no one would notice that he moody for a different reason.

"Let's face it Hotch. The answer is not here." Morgan finally said at their lunch break.

"There has to be something." Hotch said tiredly.

"If there is, it must be invisible." Emily replied.

"Are we sure there aren't any other links between the girls?" Hotch asked, looking right at Reid.

"Not that we can find. The all belong to different groups, have different pastimes, and they looked different. They did all know each other, and they all lived at the same lake. The fact that they are associated to two different towns and schools suggests even more so that they had less to do with each other. Lake Cooper is still the connection." Reid replied.

Hotch sighed. "I don't know then." He finally said looking at Gideon who quietly thinking.

However, Gideon remained that way, as did everyone else, during lunch. There was nothing to say. They returned to their work. Nothing happened until mid-afternoon when JJ was called out to talk with a local cop.

"Uh, Hotch we might have a minor problem." JJ said when she returned a few minutes later. They left the room.

* * *

"Back off?" Hotch repeated stunned.

JJ and he were in the bullpen of the Watertown PD talking to Detective Stanten.

"Not back off, exactly." He replied. "It's just that you're interfering with some of our investigations."

"What do you mean by that?" Hotch asked curtly.

"Someone may have recognized Officer Heiden." Detective Stanten replied annoyed.

"Is he all right?" Hotch demanded.

"So far, but now the undercover work he's put in might be useless. We won't know until tonight." Stanten replied.

"He hid DNA and other evidence from us!" Hotch said nearly yelling.

"Are you insinuating that he may have deserved to be recognized? How dare you!" Stanten said fiercely.

"How dare you, a local cop, try to tell a federal agent to back off!" Hotch yelled.

The bullpen suddenly became very quiet.

"Some federal agent you are. Two girls are missing and you aren't even out there looking for them!" Stanten spat back.

"Hotch!" JJ said, restraining him. She knew Hotch's I'm might kill someone look. "Sir, we are doing out best to find the man who kidnapped the girls because we believe that will lead us to them." JJ said in her negotiating voice.

"What good is it doing?" came another voice from behind JJ.

They turned around to see Anna's and Sara's parents coming in. Anna's mother continued to speak.

"Our daughters are still gone." She said.

"Ma'am, we are truly sorry for that and we are doing our best to get them back-" JJ tried again.

"Oh really? Then where are they? Huh? Why is it that our two are gone, while all the other parents don't have to worry anymore?" Anna's mother screamed.

"Ma'am, please calm down." JJ started to say.

By now, the commotion had leaked into the conference room and the rest of the BAU team had ventured out into the bullpen.

"And Kristy? She's fine!" Mrs. Shaken screamed.

"What about me?"

Kristy had picked the absolute worst time to come down to the station. Anna's mother turned around shocked that she was there. Suddenly her nostrils flared, and she took off after Kristy screaming things such as 'not fair' and 'ungrateful little girl'. Thankfully, about 20 men jumped down on her before she could hurt Kristy. Morgan, being the strongest of the bunch restrained her while Reid and Emily went over to Kristy.

* * *

"What the hell?" Kristy said.

They moved her to a different room so she didn't have to keep hearing Mrs. Shaken's screams

"Kristy are you all right?" Emily asked.

"Yeah I think so." Kristy replied.

She suddenly began to tremble and sat down quickly.

Reid immediately went over to her.

"I'm going to be fine." Kristy said adamantly. "It just shocked me."

"Kristy it's okay." Reid said.

"What was going on?" Kristy asked again.

Reid shook his head.

"I'll go find out." Emily said.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Reid asked again.

"I think so. I'm just not used to being attacked by pissed off mothers." Kristy replied.

Reid smiled and relaxed. He knew she was going to be fine.

"I should have come down earlier." Kristy kept going.

"Why didn't you?" Reid asked.

"Well, I tried to go back to go school today. I was about to walk in the building, and I saw all of my classmates staring at me. Their looks felt like they were accusing me, like because of me, Cora, Ginger, Anna and Ginger were gone. Sort of like Anna's mom. I chickened out and asked to have the day off again. I got the whole you're missing too much school and we'll have to speak to your mother lecture, but they let me go. I went home and just started crying. I feel so guilty. I finally decided it would be best to come back here." Kristy said.

"Kristy you are not guilty." Reid said. "You didn't do anything wrong. Those kids were wrong to think that you should be blamed for something like this."

Kristy smiled. "Thanks." She said quietly.

Emily returned.

"Okay, as it turns out, the local PD is getting a little mad with us." She started. "They want us to back off a bit because their whole bust thing might now be ruined."

"What? That's crazy!" Reid exclaimed.

"Yeah, I know." Emily said. "And as we found out, Anna's and Stacey's parents felt the same way. They want us to either find the girls soon or they are threatening to make us leave."

"We're federal agents. We have more authority." Reid said dumbstruck.

Emily shrugged. "JJ, Hotch and Gideon are trying to sort it out. Morgan and I are going to keep going through the files."

Reid nodded, and Emily left. He turned to Kristy.

"I'm sorry. They usually aren't quite this stupid and hot-headed." Kristy said.

"The cops?" Reid inquired.

"Yeah. If you guys weren't here, they probably wouldn't even be close to finding the girls. I mean, someone in my step-family went missing last summer, and they hardly did a thing! It was us who organized search parties, and it was us who found him. Those girls would be screwed if it weren't for you guys." Kristy said. "Anyway, where did we leave off?"

"Uh, I don't remember. We'll just start off with some other things." Reid said as he sat down next to her. "What were you thinking about before you were drugged?" Reid asked.

"Before? Well, a lot of things. I was thinking about the movies I had watched that night, I was thinking about my crush, thinking about what was going to happen at school the next day." Kristy listed.

"Anything else?" Reid asked.

"You want specific? Okay, I was thinking about the really freaky parts of Silent Hill that were probably going to keep me until two. I was thinking about how to ask my crush Alecc out. There were a million things going through my head."

"You thought about all of that in the two blocks you walked before being attacked?" Reid asked.

"We had a couple energy drinks, I was fairly hyper." Kristy retorted. Then she laughed. "And I was also thinking about my stupid A- in Geometry."

Suddenly, Kristy stood up straight. Her eyes became wide and she began to shake again.

"Kristy?" Reid asked nervously. "Kristy are you okay?"

He tried to shake her, but her body was frozen almost in shock.

"Kristy!" Reid said.

She then collapsed to the floor.

* * *

"Come on, wake up!" Reid said. Kristy was lying on the floor, cold and unmoving.

Reid had called for help and Morgan and Emily were with him. Emily was calling the ambulance while they tried to revive her.

"What happened?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know." Reid said. "She was fine one moment, and then she passed out."

Then, many more people walked in including the rest of the team and other local cops.

Gideon knelt down beside Reid and Morgan while Hotch and JJ talked to the local cops.

Reid wasn't completely paying attention to their conversation, but from what he heard, the local cops were trying to blame them for Kristy passing out.

Suddenly her eyelids fluttered a bit.

"Kristy? You okay?" Morgan asked. Everyone became quiet.

She opened her eyelids all the way and looked around.

"Did… did I pass out?" She asked quietly. Everyone exchanged looks.

"Yeah. Are you all right?" Reid asked again.

"Dang it." Kristy said as she pushed herself up.

"Kristy stay down, it's all right." Everyone seemed to say at once.

"I'm fine." She said above them.

"This wouldn't have happened if you people weren't here." Stanten suddenly said.

This broke out a verbal fight between the BAU team and the local cops. However, Reid didn't join. He put his arm around Kristy and helped her sit up.

"What do you need to know?" She asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" Reid asked.

"The memory came back." Kristy said. "What do you need to know?"

Reid was taken aback by what she had said. The fight was growing louder.

"Uh, anything that makes him different from everyone else." Reid said. She nodded and closed her eyes. "But, Kristy it's okay you don't need to-"

She suddenly grabbed his right wrist.

"He has a tattoo. Right here on the front side." She said, indicating his wrist. "It's red-ish, and says something but I don't know what."

Reid was so shocked that he completely forgot about everything going on around him. Suddenly, two EMT's pushed him out of the way as everyone else was taken out of the room. The BAU team went back to their conference room.

"What happened?" Hotch asked.

"She had the memory." Reid said quietly.

Everyone stared at him.

"You sure?" Hotch asked.

"She was able to tell me that he has a red tattoo with writing on his wrist." Reid said, excitement growing in his voice.

It hit him; they might be able to solve the case.

"I'll call the hospital. See if they know anyone with tattoos." Emily said.

"We'll go down there. If Kristy's there and the unsub happens to be as well, she can ID him." Gideon said.

"You will not." Stanten said. "We are having to send a girl to the hospital because of you."

"Don't tell us what to do and not do." JJ said. No longer was she trying to play nice. The cops had pissed the team off and they were paying for it. "We are federal agents who are on the job. We are going to do what we can to solve this case."

"Fine, go down to the hospital. But stay away from her." Stanten said.

"Why? It's not like you exactly cared about her." Reid suddenly said.

Everyone was shocked that it was Reid who spoke up.

"What do you mean?" Stanten said.

"The thing that set off the memory causing her to faint was a school subject. If we hadn't intervened, she would have gone on her daily business, not knowing what could happen, and she would have passed out in school. They probably would have thought she was going through a flashback that was created in her head. If it wasn't for us, no one would know that the man she saw in her flashback was really the unsub. Now, we can get this guy, and help two other girls." Reid said, breathing heavily by the time he had finished. "You never would have been able to do that."

"Just stay away from her. Then you'll do no more damage." Stanten said, not knowing how to respond to what Reid has said.

Everyone looked around tiredly.

"Everyone else besides JJ and I should probably go to the hospital. We'll try to sort out this mess." Hotch said.

* * *

At the hospital, Gideon and Emily took one half of the departments, while Morgan and Reid took the other half. They were going to talk to all the department heads and see if they could ID anyone.

"It's been a crazy day." Morgan commented as they started to walk down to the ER.

Reid nodded. He craned his neck, trying to see Kristy.

"Reid, the cops will be really pissed if they see you with her." Morgan said.

"Morgan, I don't really care. Kristy deserves to know if we get him. Besides, we haven't done anything wrong. You and Hotch followed all of the stipulations for meeting with Heiden. They can't say it's because of something we did." Reid said.

They approached the front desk.

"Hi. We're from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit and we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions." Morgan greeted the head nurse.

"Uh, I guess if you make it quick." She said.

"Ma'am, is there a man here who has a tattoo right here?" Reid asked, showing her exactly where Kristy had touched his arm. He could still feel her cold fingers.

"Uh, you know, I think I do know someone. He doesn't work in this part though." She replied.

"Where does he work?" Morgan asked.

"I think he's a transcriptionist." She replied. "He comes down here sometimes to get stuff."

"Thanks." Morgan and Reid said.

Morgan grabbed his cell phone.

"Gideon we got a lead-" Morgan started to say.

"We got a name. Nathaniel Grimow." Gideon said. "He's here at work, his office is on the third floor. We're headed there now."

"We're on the second. Where do we go?" Morgan asked.

"3E" Gideon replied as they hung up.

* * *

"That's him." Kristy said quietly.

A half hour ago, Reid had been standing outside Nathanial Grimow's office, waiting with the others. Grimow came out quietly, and on his right wrist, there was a red heart with a date on it.

'This has got to be him.' Reid thought.

All that was needed now was a DNA test. Gideon, Emily, and Morgan had taken him down to the station and also try to find why his name hadn't appeared in any of the files. Reid had decided to find Kristy and tell her. Before they had taken Grimow, Reid had grabbed his hospital ID, which had his photo on it.

Kristy had just confirmed that Grimow was the man. She now looked ready to puke.

"Are you feeling okay?" Reid asked.

"I'm feeling fine. I feel a lot better now that I've had the memory. I mean, it really did scare me. I didn't expect it to all of a sudden appear in my head. I expected it would come slowly, but all of sudden I could feel him grabbing me, and…and" Kristy started shaking again.

Reid put his hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay. You were really brave and a lot of girls were helped because of you." Reid reminded her.

Kristy smiled. "Thanks. What happens now?"

"Well, we're going to do a DNA test. We're also going to see if he will confess." Reid replied. "Have they told you what's going to happen with you?" Reid asked.

"I think the cops are trying to say that I might have a bleed in my brain and I should be kept overnight for observation." Kristy spat out sarcastically. "Stupid cops."

Reid laughed.

"It might be best. We don't know that this won't have any more effects. You should be fine thought, especially by tomorrow if nothing has happened." Reid assured her.

Kristy nodded. "How did you see me? I heard that one detective threatening you."

Reid smiled. "The nurse was greatly moved by my badge."

Reid's insides twisted guiltily, remembering the poor pharmacist.

Kristy laughed. She then became very pensive.

"My Mom and Dad will come back tomorrow. They still don't really understand what happened because I didn't really tell them." Kristy said. "Can, can you stay with me for a while?" Kristy asked timidly. "I don't want to be alone quite yet."

"Sure." Reid said.

He wasn't used to someone trusting him this much, but he liked it. It was a relief to the negative feelings he had been having so much lately.

* * *

"Hey sweetie." Garcia greeted him. Kristy and Reid had been talking for a long time and his cell phone just rang.

"Garcia, what's up?" He asked.

"Well, I just got the DNA sample from Hotch. And you are on speaker with the rest of the team as of now."

"Morgan." Morgan intercepted.

"Hey hot stuff. Put me on speaker." Garcia ordered.

"You're on speaker." Morgan said.

"Hey Morgan. What's been going on?" Reid asked.

"Hey Reid. Not a lot. The guy gave up a sample pretty quick, but then his lawyer showed up and he hasn't said anything since." Morgan replied.

"Well, according to the sample you sent, your man is, wait, no!" Garcia said.

"What Garcia?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know. The machine is telling me that they don't match." Garcia said quietly.

"You sure?" Reid asked impatiently, as he stepped out of the room so that Kristy wouldn't hear.

"Yes. All I'm getting is that unsub is of relation to Grimow." Garcia said.

"That can't be right. Kristy ID'ed him." Reid practically yelled.

"Reid, calm down." Hotch spoke. "We'll look into Grimow's relatives and find the guy."

"That's going to be hard sir. According to his file, Grimow's parents and son are dead. He was an only child. Anything after that wouldn't show this much relation." Garcia said. "All I can tell you is what this machine is telling me. I'm faxing over the results, you can look for yourself." Garcia said, worry in her voice.

"Okay. Thanks mama." Morgan said. Garcia hung up on her line.

"Reid, we'll send them over to the hospital. You can take a look at them. We'll see if we can get him to talk because someone related to him did this." Gideon assured Reid.

Reid waited impatiently outside the nurses station where the fax was being sent. He was angry. Grimow fit the profile. He was 49. He had the tattoo. He worked a menial job in a hospital where he had access to Etomidate. Kristy ID'd him. What was wrong?

Unfortunately, Garcia had been correct. The DNA line of the original sample did not match Grimow's. Reid cursed and begrudgingly went back into Kristy's room.

"What happened?" She demanded.

"Kristy," Reid began slowly, "the DNA, it didn't provide a match."

Kristy stared at Reid for a moment.

"What are you talking about? It's him! He did it." Kristy said firmly.

"He couldn't have Kristy. The DNA says he didn't." Reid sadly replied.

"But he did!" Kristy yelled.

"Kristy, look." Reid said. He gave her the sheet of the DNA lines.

"But…how is that…how could he…what the…" She began to mutter.

She was silent for many minutes as she stared at the DNA sheet. Reid sat down and waited for her.

"What's this second line?" Kristy asked.

Reid looked at the paper. Sure enough, on the DNA samples, there were two lines instead of one.

"Well, sometimes in twins, the DNA is shared so much that they can appear secondarily in later DNA." Reid explained.

"So, could an identical twin done this?" Kristy asked.

"No. Grimow's an only child." Reid replied.

"Then why is a secondary line of DNA here?" Kristy asked.

"I don't know." Reid replied. "Sometimes, there are genetic defects that could cause this. Not enough research has been done in this field to determine most oddities that appear."

Kristy sighed. She didn't say much else the rest of the night. Reid kept calling back to the station, but nothing was turning up. No one of relation to Nathanial Grimow could have done this. They released him.

* * *

Reid had decided to stay at the hospital until Kristy fell asleep. She was taking this incredibly hard. The team called it another tired night at 10.

Around 11, Reid's eyelids started to droop while Kristy appeared wired. After an hour, Reid couldn't take it anymore and started to go off into a doze which later led to sleep.

His sleep was fitful. He kept having nightmares, all of them involving someone he cared about getting hurt. Reid kept waking up. Around 4, he couldn't take it anymore. His body cried for the Dilaudid, which was safely stored in Reid's satchel.

With Kristy finally safely sleeping, Reid stealthily walked into the room's bathroom. Taking into consideration the time of night, he knew he could give himself a full dose. It would be enough to satisfy his craving and give him enough rest to make it until morning.

As he readied the needle, he swore he heard something. He looked up for a moment, hoping not to get caught. It was silent again, so he returned to his work. He finally let the drug back, and he felt elated. Reid wanted more, but he knew it would have to wait.

Then, he was sure he heard something. Reid opened the door and through his blurry vision saw a large, dark figure. Reid tried to make out what was happening, but his senses were greatly impaired. The next thing he knew, something sharp pierced his neck, and suddenly it became too difficult to keep his eyes open… too difficult to try to think…

* * *

Reid never did feel of his head hitting the floor. 


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Wow, thank you so much for all the reviews! It's been easier to write faster no with these chapters. This has been written for a long time, but I'm sure that all of you have known about the wonderful errors. Chapter 9 is almost done. I'm attempting to finish this before the next new episode in America, which is set to broadcast on April 25. But whatever happens, hope you enjoy!

Other A/N: At the end of the last chapter, the piercing pain in Reid's neck was another needle. In other words he was drugged; he did pass out from the Dilaudid. Just wanted to make that clear.

Once again, I don't own the show Criminal Minds. If I did, I wouldn't have had to make up what happened on the date between Reid and JJ.

"Hotchner." Was the tired response that emitted itself from Hotch's mouth. It was 6:30, and he was already up, but he was not used to getting calls this early.

"What? Okay. I'll be right there." Hotch said.

'Damnit.' He hurried out of his room quickly. He contemplated getting someone else, especially Gideon, but he didn't think anyone else would be up and ready yet. Hotch then headed towards the hospital.

"Hi, I'm agent Hotchner. You called about a kidnapping possibly relating to our case."

He was talking to another local cop, which royally pissed him off. A judge finally got some sense into Stanten's head by agreeing completely with the BAU, and even threatening Stanten with his job because he tried to 'impede a federal investigation'. Not that it mattered anymore; they were now back to square one.

"Yeah. I knew about the kidnappings that had been happening lately, and then we found this note." The cop said. "We couldn't figure it out. Some of the words are jibberish almost, and out of place. We figured it would be best to call you guys."

"Well, this is different." Hotch said examining the letter.

'Jesus Krest entered the world 2000 years ago, forever inpacting Socail Studis. Ancient Histoy remembers hm becauce of his profound inpact.'

On the back, he saw many lines that appeared crooked and off. He couldn't determine their importance or significance. The letter was confusing him even more.

"Who was the girl?" Hotch asked.

"Kristy Aden." Hotch's head snapped up.

"Are you sure?" Hotch asked.

"Yeah. This was her room, and she was not in it this morning." The cop said.

"What all did you find?" Hotch asked.

"Well, for physical evidence, we found nothing. There was another man in the room, but he may have wandered in. He was out of it, on some drug or another." The cop replied.

"Excuse me?" Hotch asked.

"All these people aren't around to visit sick people at 7 on a Friday morning. We made a huge bust last night. Druggies are everywhere, we figured one slipped away and ended up in her room. She probably was gone before he came. He didn't have ID, but because he wasn't even responding. They checked him in." The cop replied.

Hotch felt sick. Heiden made his bust, and here their witness was missing.

Hotch sighed. He pulled out his cell phone to call Gideon.

"Gideon."

"We have a problem. Kristy got snatched."

"What?"

"I know. I'm here at the hospital. He didn't leave anything, but a note."

"She was snatched from the hospital?" Gideon asked, utterly stunned.

"Can you round everyone up? Just go to the station, there's not a lot to do here." Hotch replied.

"Yeah. We'll be there in 15 minutes."

Hotch hung up his phone.

He entered the room. Her bed was messy; she was quickly forced to leave.

'He usually has drugs. He couldn't have done that here. They would have noticed her being dragged.'

"Uh, they just found that her street clothes are missing." The cop told Hotch.

'Which means he walked her out and they aren't being noticed.' Hotch thought. 'Probably held a gun to her.'

He stared around the room, but no clues remained. He looked at the strange note again, but it was to no avail. Nothing told him where Kristy was. He looked at his watch, and saw the team would be at the station by now.

"Gideon."

"Hey. Put me on speaker."

"Okay, you're on."

"Okay, from what I can determine, this time, he walked her out, possibly with a weapon to her back. Her street clothes are gone, so they won't be noticed if he's discreet enough." Hotch said.

"When do they think this happened?" Morgan asked.

"Uh, according to the report, bed checks happen at 10, 2, 5, and 7:30 for breakfast. It was reported at five, so sometime between 2 and 5." Hotch replied.

"That's a three hour window. Plenty of time to get in force her out quietly, and leave." Morgan said.

"If you know the hospital." Emily said. "It points to the unsub. If he is a hospital employee, he would know how to work around the time checks, sneak in, and sneak out."

"Good." Hotch said.

"What did you say about a note?" Gideon inquired.

"Oh yeah, he left a note. It's nonsense, I think I know what it says but there are errors everywhere. Reid can you analyze it?" Hotch asked.

"Isn't he with you?" JJ asked quizzically.

"No. I came alone. Why?"

There was a pause.

"Hotch, Reid's not here." Morgan said quietly.

Déjà vu crept over the team as they realized they were once again in the same situation as a month ago.

"Where was he last?" Hotch demanded.

"He was at the hospital." Emily said.

"Did he come back?" JJ asked.

"I thought he did last night." Morgan said. "I thought he got up early and was doing something because Gideon woke me up."

"I'm coming down." Hotch said. He hung up his cell phone.

"What could have happened?" JJ asked. No one could believe that Reid was gone again.

"I thought I heard him last night." Morgan repeated to himself guiltily.

"What are we going to do?" Gideon asked.

Everyone was silent for a minute.

"Guys, I hate to ask this, but what if he left?" Emily asked quietly.

Everyone turned to stare at her.

"Like ran?" Morgan asked.

"Well, you never know. I mean, it's possible." Emily said.

"No, not Reid." Gideon said.

"Do we know that?" Emily asked defensively.

"Yes, we do." JJ said defiantly. She was on the verge of tears and she didn't know if it was because of Reid's disappearance or Emily's question.

"Reid wouldn't do that, especially in a foreign area." Morgan insisted. "You should know that Emily."

"Well, I don't know any of you that well. I don't know what you will do and not do." Emily said her voice rising.

"What are you talking about?" Morgan asked.

A fight then erupted between Morgan, JJ and Emily. They were too absorbed to notice that Gideon had answered his cell phone.

"Enough." He finally said after hanging up. "For all we know, the unsub may have planned to create this sort of tension between us. He's got us unnerved now. This isn't going to help Reid. It's just going to aid the unsub in distracting us so we don't find him." Gideon was yelling at the three now.

The all shared looks of shame. They knew it was foolish to quarrel with each other, especially when a member of their team was down.

"Hotch asked us come down to the hospital." Gideon said as he got ready to leave.

"We need to see agent Hotchner" Gideon said to the nurse at the front desk.

"Follow me." She replied.

She took them down a hallway.

"Emily," Morgan whispered. "Didn't Reid go in the opposite direction yesterday?" 

Emily had to think for a moment. They had seen Reid go to Kristy's room before they left.

"Yeah, I think you're right." She whispered back.

Morgan got a look of horror on his face.

"Hotch." Gideon greeted him when the reached the room he waiting in front of.

"Hey." Hotch said quietly. He was slightly pale.

"What happened?" Gideon tried to ask, but was interrupted by a nurse exiting the room.

"Here you go." She said, and she gave him a vile of blood.

"Hotch, what you want that for?" Morgan asked.

"Guys, Reid-" Hotch began.

"Oh my gosh." JJ whispered. She looked through the window of the hospital room and the sight shocked her.

Reid was in the hospital bed, unconscious with an oxygen cannula in his nostrils.

Morgan opened the door and went it, not caring if there were any protests from the others. JJ followed suit and as did Emily.

"Hotch, what? How?" Gideon asked quietly.

"They found an unconscious man in the bathroom of Kristy's room. They assumed he walked off from the group of people busted for drugs because he was unconscious when they found him. But then as I was leaving, they said he was drugged. I figured that if I checked it out quick; see if it would be helpful in finding the unsub or Reid." Hotch replied quietly.

"Why didn't you say something over the phone?" Gideon asked,

"I didn't want to say it." Hotch replied.

"Say what?"

"That Reid had been taken down… again." Hotch replied. "This is twice, in four weeks, that we've had to put Reid in the hospital because of work."

"Hotch, you didn't cause this." Gideon said. "The unsub did. Why did you ask for a vile of blood?"

"Because I'm sending it to Garcia." Hotch said adamantly.

"Why? They can test it here." Gideon said.

"But not for hours. The bust happened last night. There's only two machines here to use, and other people have precedent over Reid because they're sicker. They think some kids ingested lethal amounts of who knows what drugs. According to the doctor, Reid will be probably be okay, as long as he wakes up soon." Hotch said.

"Hotch, if the doctor feels that he'll be okay, we don't need to send it to Garcia." Gideon said.

"Jason, I'm sending it because Reid deserves it." Hotch said firmly. He turned and started to walk out the door.

"Aaron, talk to me." Gideon said. "What's wrong?"

"Other than the fact that Reid's in the hospital, nothing." Hotch said.

"Hotch, it isn't normal for you to be this upset. What's wrong?" Gideon repeated.

"Maybe I decided it was time to not stick to the profile." He turned and went back out. Gideon sighed and went into the room.

JJ and Morgan were on either side of Reid. JJ was clutching his hand while Emily stood back.

"Where's Hotch?" She asked.

"He had to go send something." Gideon said quietly.

"Did he tell you what the doctors said?" Morgan asked.

"He was drugged." A female doctor walked into the room. "Didn't see this right away, but you can't do this by yourself."

She walked promptly over to Reid and moved his head enough for everyone to see the needle mark on his neck.

"Are you his doctor?" Gideon asked.

"Yes. Who are you?" She asked.

"SSA Gideon."

"I'm sorry we didn't call you earlier. We didn't know he was FBI until your other agent identified him." She replied.

"He had no ID at all?" Emily asked. "No gun or anything?"

The doctor shook her head.

"He was found in the bathroom passed out. He's been unresponsive since." She replied.

"Is he going to be okay?" JJ asked.

"As far as I can tell. I'll feel better when I know what got put in him, but so far, the only thing I can notice different is that he is having a slightly lower respiratory rate and his blood pressure is also a little low." She said.

"Both are symptoms of Rohypnol." Gideon said.

"Most likely same guy then." Morgan said.

"Then why Reid? If he took all the other girls, why did he leave Reid?" Emily asked.

"Because he wanted Kristy." Gideon said. "And to get to her, Reid had to be taken out. There was no need to take him with."

"But he left the note." JJ said. "Why now? This is the eighth time he's taken a girl."

"Could be a sign of remorse." Emily said. "Maybe he wants us to catch him because he's starting to feel guilty."

"We'll have to examine it without Reid." Gideon said. "Is there anything we need to be looking out for?" He asked the doctor.

"It's best that he wakes up in the next few hours. Once he does, get a nurse or doctor. If he suddenly has more trouble breathing, or something feels really wrong, get a nurse." She replied. "Until he wakes up, there's nothing I can do."

"So we wait." Gideon said.

Everyone stared down at Reid, who appeared to be sleeping.

Hotch returned and they began to work on who would do this. Everyone tried to make sense of the note, but nothing came to them.

Since the hospital was where the unsub worked, they decided to look around. Everyone volunteered to stay with Reid, but JJ won in the end.

She had been sitting in the same spot holding his hand for an hour and a half. He still hadn't stirred.

'Come on, Spence. Wake up.' She thought furiously. Her mind kept flashing back to Georgia immediately after they rescued Reid from Tobias.

In Georgia, all the doctors were worried about was hydrating Reid. He had been through two and half days with hardly anything to drink or eat. JJ hated going to the hospital. No matter what Reid told her, she felt guilty. She felt it was her fault that Reid was there in the first place.

Her mind then began to go back to her first date with Reid, which caused her to laugh outwardly. He had been so cute at the Redskins game. JJ was trying to not lose her patience at explaining the game to him. She couldn't believe that for once, she knew something more than he did, even if it was just football.

Afterwards, they went out to eat and there wasn't one moment where they weren't talking. She was so comfortable with him. They would have gone out more times, but Reid wasn't comfortable with it. They had remained close, but nothing serious had happened.

"Come on Spence." She whispered. The door opened quietly behind her and Morgan appeared at her side.

"Hey, how's it going?" Morgan asked.

"Okay, but he's not awake yet. How's everything going out there?" JJ asked.

"We don't have anything. We've tried going by Kristy's lead, but we got nothing. We tried going by the profile, and still nothing." Morgan said. He pulled up a chair next to hers.

"Hotch sent a blood sample to Garcia." Morgan said. "She'll get it soon."

"Good." JJ said quietly. She wasn't really thinking about why Hotch would do this. All she was thinking about was the last few weeks.

"JJ, something up? I mean, other than this." Morgan said looking at Reid, wishing that he would wake up.

"What? No. I'm fine." JJ replied.

She wasn't about to admit to Morgan how little she had been sleeping the last few weeks, feeling guilt-ridden and afraid. Nightmares kept coming back to her. She couldn't sleep after seeing images of Reid hurt worse by Tobias or something else terrible happening to him. On her better nights, it was only the dogs that came back to visit her.

"You sure? You've seemed off the last few weeks." Morgan tried again.

"I've been a little bit more stressed than usual, that's all." JJ replied. "Don't worry, I'll be fine." She said with a smile.

Morgan was about to ask again, but his cell phone rang.

'Saved by the ringtone.' JJ thought.

"Morgan."

"Okay, I'm analyzing this blood, and what do you know, the DNA analysis popped up kind of quickly. Why the hell am I analyzing Reid's blood?" Garcia asked Morgan.

"Hotch didn't say anything?" 

"All I got was a vile of blood and a note to analyze it. What's wrong with Reid?" Garcia asked again.

"Penelope, it's going to be all right. Reid's in the hospital, but he's okay." Morgan said.

"Don't try that with me buster. Tell me everything. What happened?" 

"He was drugged, most likely by the same unsub. We need to know what he used, which is why we sent the blood to you." Morgan said, hoping the flattery might placate her a bit.

"Okay. I have it set up so once I know, the results will be faxed to the hospital emergency room." Garcia said after a few moments of silence.

"How soon?" Morgan asked.

"It could be ten, twenty minutes yet."

"Okay, Garcia, let me call the Gideon and Hotch first." Morgan said.

He quickly put the message out.

"Okay, we have Etomidate, Rohypnol, and Hydromorphone." Reid's doctor said.

It was 20 minutes later. Gideon, Hotch, Morgan, and Emily were standing the waiting room talking to the doctor as they waited for the results.

"What's that?" Morgan asked.

"A different form of heroin." The doctor replied. "Most likely Dilaudid. It's the most common form."

"Where have we heard that before?" Hotch asked. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't place it.

"Tobias was once a user." Emily said quietly.

Everyone exchanged dark looks at the mention of the name.

"But why add that now? I mean, he knew that the Etomidate and Rohypnol worked fine with the other girls." Morgan said.

"Because Kristy got away. He thought he needed something stronger to keep her down." Gideon said.

"Well, the dosing is quite strange. He used a full dose of Rohypnol, a huge dose of Etomidate, and one and a half doses of Dilaudid. This would be more than enough to get a person down within in moments, and because of the Dilaudid, keep them down for 7-8 hours." The doctor said.

"Well, going by the later end, the unsub would need at least a half hour to drug Reid, hide him, and get Kristy to leave, most likely more. The unsub was there at least by 4:30. Probably earlier." Hotch said.

Morgan and Gideon nodded their heads.

"Well then, if it's 9:45 now, your agent should wake up in the hour and half to two hours. If he doesn't, I can reverse the Dilaudid or the Rohypnol enough to wake him up. Because these are both too small to be lethal, you shouldn't have to worry. We just have to let this pass on its own." She said and left.

Everyone exchanged looks. They all felt better know what he had been drugged with, but they were all still uneasy.

"I'll go tell JJ." Morgan said.

Morgan entered the room again. JJ and Reid appeared to be the same as the last time he entered. She still hadn't let go of his hand, and she would barely look away.

"Hey. Garcia sent us the results." Morgan said.

"And?"

"The doctor thinks he'll wake up in the next hour and a half." Moran replied.

'Sure.' JJ thought. She had been incredibly pessimistic lately. It felt like nothing could ever be good again, and then this had to happen.

"And if he doesn't?" JJ asked quietly.

The first thing that he knew was the smell. That smell is always so strong. 

'Why am I in a hospital?' Reid thought to himself. He tried to remember what happened last, but that was difficult. His energy was returning slowly. Then he began to hear voices.

"Garcia sent us the results." He knew that voice.

"And?" He knew that voice too.

"Doctor thinks he'll wake up in the next hour and a half."

Morgan and JJ! Reid couldn't believe it took him that long to remember that.

He realized that someone was holding his hand. And then his eyes opened only to reveal blurry vision.

"Well, the doctor said she can reverse it if she needs to." Morgan said. He was taken aback by her question. Usually, she wasn't so pessimistic. "JJ-"

"JJ…" Reid interrupted.

It took JJ and Morgan a moment to react. They stared at him, realizing that now he was indeed awake.

"Spence! Do you feel okay? Are you all right?" JJ asked nervously.

"I, I don't know." Reid answered slowly.

He was wearing a hospital gown, and he was in a hospital bed. It then dawned on Reid that he was in the hospital as a patient. But why? Last thing he remembered was going to find Kristy. Or was he? His memory was so blurry.

Morgan ran out of the room to find a doctor.

"JJ, what's going on?" Reid asked. "Where's Kristy? I have to see her."

"What are you talking about?" JJ asked in a worry-filled voice.

"Kristy had the memory. She needs to identify the man." Reid replied, trying to get out of the bed.

"Spence, what do you remember?" JJ asked slowly as she pushed him down.

"The last thing I remember was…was…" Reid said, trying to remember but too many flashes were coming into his mind. Suddenly, he recalled that Kristy had ID'ed the man. What was going on?

The doctor came in and gently pushed JJ aside, but before she did, JJ whispered something in her ear.

"Mr. Reid, I need to speak to you." She said calmly.

Reid's head was still reeling. He didn't want to speak to anyone. All he wanted was a few minutes to collect his thoughts.

"How are you feeling?" She asked as she started to examine his pupils.

"Uh, fine." Reid answered shakily.

"Do you have a headache?" She continued.

"My head hurts slightly and I'm fine otherwise." Reid answered shortly.

Focus was returning and he was beginning to realize how wrong everything must be if he was in the hospital and he couldn't remember anything. He needed to get answers.

"Do you know what day is it?"

'Crap.' Reid was so confused. The last thing he remembered was talking to Kristy. Then it was night. There wasn't a window in the room so Reid couldn't see what time of day it was.

"I know the last memory I had was late Thursday." Reid said.

"Okay. Do you remember everything that led up to that moment?" She asked.

"I was in Kristy's room. The DNA, something happened with the DNA." Reid said frustrated.

"Okay, do you remember anything else?" the doctor asked.

"Nothing definitive." Reid replied. "There are flashes of other things."

"Like?"

"Just, sitting in her room. I think anyway." Reid said. "What happened?"

The doctor just turned and left. Reid began to examine what was around him. In his left hand, an IV needle was inserted, but it wasn't connected to anything. He could feel the oxygen cannula in his nose. Other than those two things, he looked normal. However, there was some pain at the back of his neck he couldn't understand.

'Wait a second, pain on my neck, could I have been drugged?' Reid panicked. 'Or worse, what if I passed out from the Dilaudid, and the team found out?'

After a few minutes, Hotch and Gideon walked in and came over to him. Reid dreaded and greeted their presence

"Hey Reid." Gideon greeted.

Hotch was silent. Reid noticed how off he looked.

"Hotch, Gideon, what happened?" Reid asked, hoping for a straight answer.

'Don't say you know, don't say you know about my drug…issue.' Reid thought, not wanting to admit his own addiction to himself.

"Reid, is all that you remember talking to Kristy last night?" Hotch asked.

"Yeah. What happened?" Reid asked again.

"Reid, last night, the man Kristy identified was let go." Hotch said.

"What? Why?" Reid asked. "He did it! Kristy said so!"

"DNA didn't match. After that, we know you stayed at the hospital a little while longer to talk to Kristy." Hotch said.

"Then what happened?" Reid asked. They didn't look as if they knew about the Dilaudid.

"All we know is that you were found this morning in the bathroom of Kristy's room," Reid panicked, hoping that he didn't take Dilaudid. He wished that he could remember. "and, well,-" Hotch began.

"Reid, Kristy's missing." Gideon said.

'No.' Reid couldn't comprehend it.

"No." He actually emitted.

"Reid, don't beat yourself up. When they found, you had been drugged with Etomidate, Rohypnol, and most likely Dilaudid. Your badge was missing and so was your gun." Hotch said. "There was nothing that you could have done."

'Wait, drugged? They think he used the Dilaudid!' Reid let out a breath of relief. Hotch and Gideon mistook it for a sigh. 'I'm okay. For now.'

Reid looked up. He knew that now it was time to solve another problem. He had to find Kristy.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Okay, once again, thank you for the reviews!!!

Also once again, I don't own Criminal Minds. If I did, I wouldn't need to worry about not getting a too expensive phone because I would be making way more money.

The rest of the team finally entered. They tried to catch Reid up with all of the details of the case, but his mind just wasn't up to its normal speed. He kept getting confused and forgetting details. It was decided quickly to leave him to rest, which was also a doctor's order.

Reid was upset at first. He wanted to help find Kristy but he knew he was holding the team back because he couldn't keep up.

The team kept making rounds inside the hospital trying to pinpoint a person who could have done this. They had decided to not talk about the case in front of Reid. However, after spending two hours in and out of a doze, Reid finally felt ready to help. He agitated everyone enough that they finally decided that they would let him help as long as the doctor cleared it.

The doctor had decided that Reid was now competent, but she had wished to keep him in the hospital for observation to make sure the side effects weren't too much to handle. As long as Reid didn't do anything to strenuous, he would be okay.

During their lunch break, they all met back up in Reid's room while he examined the letter.

"I was thinking, maybe the unsub's feeling remorse because of religious connections. I mean, the letter says Jesus and it implies Christ." Emily pondered aloud.

"Well, this defiantly is a religious area." Morgan contributed.

"It is definitely a religious area, but that's not right." Reid said.

"Why not?" Emily asked.

"Because the unsub didn't write this. Kristy did." Reid said.

"Kristy? Are you sure?" Hotch asked.

"Yes. The handwriting implies a female. It's more bouncy and curly. It's also the language. Kristy wants to be a Social Studies teacher when she grows up. She talked about it like the language here, with how she described the impact on ancient history." Reid explained.

"Then why did she have all the errors?" Morgan asked. "I heard this girl; she's too smart for that many errors."

"She was probably in danger at the time." Gideon said. "Anyone with a weapon to their head is guaranteed to make a few mistakes." 

"Kristy wouldn't make this many." Reid said. "She did this on purpose."

"So what does it mean?" JJ asked.

Reid started to think long and hard. K, E, N, C and N were the letters that needed to be replaced. C, I, M, S, and M were the letters that belonged in the letter. H, E, R, and I were the letters that were missing.

"Anything?" Hotch asked after a few minutes.

"If I put the letters that are involved in order, it's nonsense. I can try to find anagrams of these letters, but the K is really throwing me." Reid replied. He turned the note over to examine the lines.

'These look familiar.' He thought. From where, he had no idea.

"Let me think about it a while." Reid replied. Everyone was finishing eating, leaving Reid and JJ alone as they headed out.

A nurse came by later to try to get Reid to eat. However, nausea still hung around him and the urge to eat was nonexistent. Reid was praying that this was the only side effect he experienced. He knew that vomiting was the other major side effect that was present for a long time afterwards, something he dearly wanted to avoid.

"Reid, you have to eat something. Do you remember eating anything yesterday?" JJ urged.

"I think I grabbed something from the cafeteria." Reid said. He didn't remember, but JJ didn't need to know that.

JJ sighed. She was worried that Reid would push himself too far. He couldn't hide that he was still weak. Every time he stood up he trembled and required assistance with everything. It was good to see him awake and alert; it wasn't right when he was out cold or confused. That was not the Spencer Reid she loved.

'Loved? Shut up JJ! You can't love someone that you aren't even dating!' She admonished herself.

"I'm still drinking liquids; as long as my stomach returns to normal soon, I'll be fine." Reid said.

JJ and Reid were both silent for a few minutes. Reid was still thinking about the difficult problem of decoding Kristy's letter.

"I don't get it." JJ said quietly.

"What?" 

"Why would she go to all this trouble to give us a simple message? I mean, if you can't figure it out, then who can?" JJ said.

"I don't know." Reid said thoughtfully. "Unless I'm over analyzing it. That has been known to happen." He replied with a small smile.

JJ chuckled. Her laugh warmed Reid's insides, and somehow gave him new inspiration.

"Wait, she probably didn't mean to include all of these letters! I've been trying to make anagrams including every single one." Reid said. He grabbed a legal pad and began writing because ideas were flooding his brain, and he needed to remember them all.

"What do you mean?" JJ asked.

"She probably only wants me to use certain groups of letters. And…" Reid began, but stopped.

"What?

Reid looked away and kept thinking. He flipped over the paper to examine the lines.

"JJ, do you have a copy of the DNA results for Nathanial Grimow?" Reid asked quietly.

JJ looked at him.

"Well, yes, but why?" She said as she handed them to him.

"JJ, is Grimow working today?" he asked after examining it for a moment.

"I don't think anyone has seen him, but why is that important? He's not the unsub." JJ reminded him.

"I need your cell phone." Reid said quickly.

"What?"

"JJ, please I need to call Garcia, and my cell phone is conveniently with the unsub along with my satchel. It's important." Reid said adamantly.

JJ fished it out and handed it over.

"If you called this number hoping to reach the all supreme and powerful technology enchantress of the FBI's computer system, then you have been successful." Garcia greeted Reid. "What can I do for you JJ?"

"Actually it's Reid. I need you to check something for me Garcia."

"Reid? Sweetie, how are you feeling? Why are working? You're in the hospital! If Hotch made you, don't worry, I can order a-" Garcia said.

"Later. Do you have the DNA of the unsub?"

"Yes." 

"Does it have a secondary line?" 

"Uh, yes it does, but it's very faint."

"Can you compare the secondary line to the main line of DNA for Grimow?"

"What? What for?"

"Garcia, please."

"Okay, but it's not going…" Garcia began.

"Going to what?" Reid asked, getting excited.

"Reid, they're a match. What the hell is going on?"

"Garcia, can you compare the other two?"

"Those are a match too." Garcia said after a moment.

"Thanks. I have to go. You're a miracle worker." 

"Reid, you need to explain this freakiness to me later."

Reid snapped the cell phone shut and started to climb out of bed unsuccessfully.

"Whoa, Spence, what's going on?" JJ said as she rushed over to help him.

"JJ we need to get Hotch. Grimow's the unsub." Reid said as he collapsed onto her outstretched arm.

"Spence, DNA cleared him. He didn't do it." JJ said quietly as she tried to get him to sit down.

"No, DNA confused us. Grimow's the unsub. JJ, we need to talk to Hotch." Reid said firmly.

"Well, I'll call Hotch, and-"

"He went to the ICU. No cell phones allowed." Reid reminded her.

JJ sighed. She knew there was nothing that would stop him.

"Let's go." She said as she led him out.

Hotch was walking out of the ICU when he saw Reid and JJ hobbling towards him. Reid looked out of breath but determined while JJ looked ready to panic.

"Reid! JJ! What's going on?" Hotch said as he ran to help Reid over to a chair.

"Hotch, Grimow's the unsub. He's a chimera." Reid panted out.

"What?"

"He's a chimera. It's a birth defect where a set of twins combines into one person. There's two sets of DNA present in a chimera. Certain cells will take certain DNA as the forefront. We compared Grimow's saliva and hair. They didn't match because it was from different types of cells, but if we were to compare his hair, they would have matched."

"Reid, how do we know? How do you know?" Hotch said obviously stunned.

"Kristy told us. Instead of using all of the letters, I was only supposed to use the ones that were needed to replace the wrong ones or the letters that were missing all together. It spells 'CHIMERISM'. On the back were lines that looked like tracings of the DNA lines. I think I gave Kristy a piece of paper last night, I'm not for sure. If I did, she was trying to figure out why this was wrong." Reid finished.

"Then why didn't she wake you and tell you she figured it out?" JJ asked.

"I don't think she figured it out until Grimow came. The tracings were done in pencil, while the letter was written in pen. I was found inside her bathroom, and the door to the bathroom had been shut?" Reid inquired.

"I believe so." Hotch replied.

"And, most likely, he got to me right away, before I had time to stop him?" Reid asked shakily.

"Yes Reid." Hotch said.

Reid breathed a sigh internally. He hoped Hotch was right; he needed to know that he did everything he could to help Kristy.

"Well, I always have a pen in my front pocket. Kristy's street clothes were gone, and a hospital patient doesn't walk around at night. Kristy had them on before she left. She went into the bathroom, changed, but also wrote this note because of the pen she got from my pocket." Reid said.

"Reid, I don't get the connection you're making." Hotch simply said.

"Grimow needed to make sure that I wouldn't be fond right away. The sooner I was found, the worse. So he put me in the bathroom, and told Kristy to change. He had my gun to threaten her. Well, Kristy would have insisted on going in the bathroom to change. Her privacy is the most important thing in the world to her. She would probably rather be shot than change in front of him." Reid said.

"And when she was in there, she hid the sheet of paper with her, and wrote the note." Hotch concluded.

"But how did she hide the note when she got out?" Reid asked.

"When I arrived, the bed was messed up from the nurse, but I think she said that it was made to look occupied. The person did a very bad job, and the note was stashed on the bed." Hotch said. "Kristy could have easily taken it back out if she brought it into the bathroom. And if he forced her to make the bed, she just had to slip it out of her hand. I mean, the paper was only a few inches big." Hotch said.

"But why did she make it a code? I mean, why didn't she just write chimerism?" JJ asked.

"In case she was caught." Hotch said. 

"He wouldn't have known what it said." Reid finished.

"But how do we know that she's right?" Hotch asked.

"Garcia confirmed that the DNA cross matched. No matter what, we have Grimow, or his nonexistent twin, at the first scene." Reid said. "Now we have to figure out why or where he is."

"We were having trouble figuring that out yesterday." JJ said quietly.

"Gideon and Prentiss thought they might have had a lead yesterday when the results came back. We'll pull everything that we got yesterday and keep looking. Go back to your room; I'll get the others." Hotch ordered.

JJ helped Reid stand up. It went more smoothly going back until Reid got to the room. Suddenly, he found himself hovering over the toilet emptying himself of his meager stomach contents with JJ beside him.

"I'm sorry." He apologized after it ended and JJ assisted him to his bed.

"Spence, it's not your fault. Rohypnol and Dilaudid can both cause nasty withdrawal symptoms. It's a good thing that you're not addicted; then they can get really bad." JJ said with an encouraging, or in Reid's opinion, taunting smile.

He gave a small nod and his cheeks began to flush.

'If only you knew JJ.' A new train of through then occurred to Reid. 'What's going to happen when I experience bad withdrawal symptoms?' Reid panicked. He knew that this was going to be the beginning of the end. No one was going to be able to understand why he would be having such terrible symptoms when he only had little amounts of the drug.

Thankfully, everyone else entered the room right then

"I briefed them, but you're going to have to explain Chimerism better than I did." Hotch said.

"Chimerism is like Siamese twins, except instead of it obviously being two distinct people, it's one person. As long as both babies are the same gender, people can go their entire lives not knowing because this is extremely rare." Reid said.

"If he did this, then why did he give us the DNA sample?" Emily challenged.

Reid had to think about this a moment.

"He knew." Gideon said. "We told him we had a hair sample, so he gave us the opposite knowing it would clear him." 

Everyone became disgusted by his guile.

"How would he find out?" Emily asked. "How or why did he suspect this?"

"Who knows? People have found out from regular DNA testing for other reasons such as paternal tests or matches for tissue and organ donation. Then, the test comes back and the DNA says that the person is really their own sibling. It can create problems with other family members' DNA as well. In fact one lady who was a chimera had a son whose parents were determined to be the kid's uncle and grandfather." Reid rambled.

"So what, he could have had a paternity test, and it just appeared?" Morgan said.

Reid nodded.

"Well, where were you guys headed with your lead?" Hotch asked, feeling that chimerism was clear enough now.

"We know that Grimow was married, but we're having trouble finding information on his wife. All we have is her name, and Garcia was working on it when the DNA results came back." Emily supplied.

"Call her and have her pick it up again." Hotch ordered to which Emily leapt right away. "Where were we with the rest of his family? There has to be someone we can talk to."

"I don't think so Hotch. His parents are dead, and as far as we can tell, he doesn't have any other alive relatives. He had a son, but he died back in 2000 from cardiac arrest according to the death certificate. And he was real young, only 17." Morgan said.

"What?" Reid asked.

"He was 17." Morgan said.

'The same age that we thought the unsub was when the accident happened. O rmaybe not…' Reid thought.

"What else do we know about his death?" Reid asked.

"Well, I got an obituary with this. All it says is that he died at Sioux Valley Hospital on March 7, 2000 after being admitted a week before following an accident." Morgan said.

"March 7? That was two days ago." Emily said.

"It only says accident; that could mean car accident, or anything else." JJ reminded her.

"We only looked as far back as 10 years ago. We can try to pull up an accident report from then and see if it matches." Hotch said.

Everyone began to flutter around.

20 minutes later, Morgan, Hotch and Gideon were headed to meet Daphne Olsen, Grimow's ex-wife. She greeted them kindly but was obviously confused about why three FBI agents were at her house.

"Ms. Olsen, what can you tell us about your ex-husband?" Morgan started.

"Nathan? Well, I haven't spoken to him in months. Why?" She asked nervously.

"Ma'am, we believe that he may be connected with a series of crimes that have been committed recently." Hotch said.

"Nathan? No. He's not that kind of person." Daphne retorted.

"What kind of person is he?" Gideon asked kindly.

"Quiet, kind. A good man and he was a good father. What makes you think he did something?"

"What connection do you have with Lake Cooper?" Hotch inquired.

"Lake Cooper? Well, until last summer, my family has owned a cabin for years there." She replied. "And, well, it's where Scott, well, the accident occurred there."

"Scott?" Morgan asked.

"Our son. You see, when we 19, Nathan and I thought we were in love. My family is very, well, rich and snobby. I'm not proud of it. They looked down upon Nathan. My parents never realized how serious I was about him. We eloped. I tried to hide it from my parents by saying that I needed to stay at school; I was on the East coast. But then I got pregnant. Needless to say, my parents spazzed when I came home from school. I told them everything, and the worst of it is that they were more ashamed that Scott turned out to be Nathan's son. They were hoping that I was sleeping around with other rich boys instead of waiting and marrying a good man. Nathan and I realized that it would never work. We got an annulment. My father tried to keep Nathan from even seeing Scott, which I hated. When Nathan tried to take him to court, my father cracked and every Sunday, Nathan and Scott spent the day together. My father did his best to cover up our marriage. Hardly anyone knows I even got married."

"How does Lake Cooper fit in?" Hotch asked again.

"Well, Nathan and Scott both loved the lake in the summer. Often, just on Sundays, they would go out and go boating and whatever else. They would stay at the cabin, which my father owned. Usually in the winter, they wouldn't go, but then, one fateful day, Scott was out with his girlfriend. She was a native of the lake; lived there all the time. It was really warm for March. She wanted to go ice fishing and Scott drove his truck out on the ice. She was following, so only Scott went under when the ice broke. Tanya, his girlfriend, did her best. She called the police and got help immediately, but Scott was trapped in the truck for so long. They were amazed that he was still alive when they pulled him out." Daphne began. She began to sniff a bit and her eyes were starting to well a bit. "They rushed him to the hospital. He went into a coma, and after a week, he passed away. It was the seven year anniversary a few days ago."

"We're sorry for your loss." Gideon said.

"Thank you. But what does this have to do with Nathan? Like I said, I haven't spoken to him in months." 

"We believe that he is responsible for the kidnappings and beatings of seven local girls. The only connection is Lake Cooper. However, we don't know where three of them are." Hotch said.

"That's terrible, but I just don't see Nathan doing this. He's not a violent man." Daphne insisted.

"He most likely isn't. When did you last have contact with him?" Morgan asked.

"When we sold the cabin." Daphne said.

Morgan, Hotch and Gideon all exchanged looks.

"When was that?" Hotch asked.

"Last September. Ever since Scott passed away, we didn't really talk that much. He was our only connection after college. Nathan took it extremely hard. But, this is not Nathan." Daphne said.

"Is there anywhere he would go, something that has high value to him?" Hotch asked.

"Uh, well, whenever he was feeling really sad, he would go to the cabin. You can tell exactly where Scott fell in from a window. Nathan once told me that he somehow feels closer to Nathan there. I've never wanted to go back. We finally got around to putting it up for sale last summer. Nathan wasn't too thrilled, but he accepted it." Daphne said.

"Who bought it?" Morgan asked. "Are they there now?" 

"Uh, I think a family from Sioux Falls. They said they would only want it for the summer, even though it's a winter cabin also. He wouldn't go back there, would he?" Daphne asked with wide eyes.

"We don't know ma'am, but we're going to check it out." Gideon said standing up.

"Thank you for your time, and if you think of anything else, call us here." Hotch said as they left.

"Okay, selling the house could have been the stressor." Morgan said as they stepped outside.

"But why wait this long? You heard her, they sold it last September." Hotch said.

"He probably wasn't angry enough. Now, it was just the anniversary of his son's death." Gideon said.

"So that could have been the stressor." Morgan said.

"But he took Cora on February 28. His son died on March 7." Hotch said.

"But that was the day that he didn't take anyone." Morgan reminded them.

"Then why did he take Kristy last night?" Gideon asked.

"Call the others. They can add this to their information." Hotch ordered. "But I think we're going to need to go to the lake and check out the cabin." 

Gideon and Morgan nodded their heads.

"Hey."

"Hey JJ. Listen, we got the connection. Grimow's father-in-law owned a cabin on Lake Cooper, and his son-" Morgan began.

"Died because of it. We know. Emily found the file and Reid's been dissecting it for a while. All we know is he went in February 28, and died March 7." JJ said.

"Well, add to the list that the possible stressor could be that they sold the cabin last September, and now it's the anniversary of the kid's death." Morgan replied.

"Okay."

"We're coming over soon, but we think that he could possibly be at the lake. We'll assemble a team when we get back."

"Okay." JJ hung up her phone.

"Okay, they may have gotten a possible stressor. Apparently, the cabin that Grimow spent his time was owned by his ex-wife's family and they sold it last September." JJ said.

"Last September?" Reid repeated.

"Yeah, why?" JJ asked.

"7 months…" Reid muttered quietly. He wished he could stand up and pace without becoming dizzy. Then the light bulb flashed on

"What?" Emily asked.

"The stressor was mathematical." Reid said. "His stressor was a convergence of seven sevens."

"Spence, what are you talking about?" JJ asked.

"Grimow's son was 1**7** years old. He was in a coma for **7** days. He died March **7**. It was **7** years ago. It's now 200**7**. There were **7** girls who lived on the lake all the time. And, it was **7** months that they sold the cabin. He probably saw all these sevens and figured it was destiny." Reid said.

"Like, the will of God." Emily said.

"Yeah exactly." Reid replied after a moment. He hadn't heard anyone use those words since Rafael had told him it was the will of God for Reid to die.

'You're here. He's not.' Reid reminded himself.

"So, why did he choose the abandoned building?" JJ asked. "I mean, they think he's at the old cabin. Wouldn't he have started there?"

"That would make sense…" Reid agreed.

"Well, the address of the building is 707, 7th street." Emily said, peering into the file.

"And then he had to move, so he went to other meaningful place he could think of that would work." Reid said.

"We got him." JJ said.

The others arrived a few moments later and were immediately told their discovery. They wasted no time in getting a force ready to leave to go to the lake.

Reid watched with sadness as everyone got ready. He wanted to go find Kristy, to find out if he really did everything he was supposed to protect her. It bothered Reid that he was taken down with little physical force. Would Kristy even forgive him? Was she okay? The questions that he had put off so they could find Kristy began to flood his head.

A few moments, he noticed that his room was completely empty. Even Gideon, who had said he would stay with Reid, was gone. Reid just slumped back in his bed. He looked at Kristy's note again. It amazed him that she figured that out. He knew that she would make it; she wouldn't go down without a hell of a fight.

Reid smiled at this thought, and then ran to the bathroom to puke again. This was the third time altogether. He knew that JJ and Emily were getting worried, but luckily, everything turned out so quickly, they weren't able to say anything.

'At least there might only be one more day of this.' Reid thought painfully. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought; he knew that the symptoms would only intensify, and the team or the doctor would notice. She had told Reid when she came to remove the oxygen cannula earlier that morning that she thought he would be able to go home that day, as long as he reacted well enough.

"Hey." Reid nearly jumped. He hadn't realized that Gideon had returned.

"Oh, hi."

"I figured that you'd want to change into something comfortable." Gideon said. He motioned to Reid's duffel, which was now on the floor.

"Thanks." Reid said.

"It could be a while. Never know how long it could take to get Grimow to come out." Gideon said.

Reid nodded and went into the bathroom to change. It felt better to be back in his own T-shirt, his own sweatpants. He looked down at his mismatched feet as he was walking out and was thankful that the doctors hadn't removed his socks. Of course, Reid had been smart enough to put a band aid over the marks, so that if someone asked, Reid would just say he cut himself.

He returned a few minutes later. Then the wait began.

Another note, take time to support the noble cause of feedback simply by clicking the 'Submit Review' button on the bottom left corner of your screen. Just by filling in your thoughts, you will have helped save many days of the author wondering exactly how they are doing. Together, we can beat this epidemic. 


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Once again, all I can say is thank you. Your reviews are awesome!!!!

Enjoy, and please review!!!!

Sad A/N: As I'm sure many of you know, a great tragedy occurred on Monday, April 16. I would like to extend my condolences to the victims, their families, their friends, and anyone else who was affected by such a horrible event. In this chapter, I do have gun and suicide use that was planned long before Cho Seung-Hui opened fire at Virginia Tech. If this will affect you, please do not read any part that I have marked with asterisks (). I believe there is only one scene. After that, there is only a mention.

Once again, I don't own Criminal Minds. If I did, I would know the schedule of the rest of the season.

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"Do you think anything has happened yet?"

Morgan was usually the impatient one. Yet, here was Reid, pacing, worrying. He didn't care that every time stood up he felt dizzy. Reid just couldn't take sitting still any longer.

"Reid, it's been twenty minutes. By now, they're hopefully making it to Lakewood." Gideon reminded him. "Don't worry; she's going to be fine. The others will get her, Ana, and Sara and bring them back."

Reid nodded. It didn't stop him from pacing though.

"Reid, what's bothering you?" Gideon asked after many moments.

"Bothering? Um noth…"

'Dang it Gideon.' Reid thought furiously. Gideon's eyes looked so trusting that Reid knew he wouldn't be able to lie. 'I can't tell him about…everything. How is it that he can get me to almost always spill my guts? Wait, maybe I'll tell him something else. I could tell him the other less damaging worry.'

"It's just that, well, I think I didn't do everything to protect Kristy. I mean, I was an armed FBI agent who was taken down by a 44 year old man. I mean, I should have been in that chair Gideon while Kristy slept." Reid began as he watched the scene inside his head again. "I should have easily been able to stand up, draw my gun, get him to back down, and arrested him. Then, Kristy wouldn't have to be held hostage, and probably beaten. But I didn't Gideon. Instead, he got me. And because of me, he got Kristy."

"Reid, no one blames you for what happened."

"It's not just that Gideon. If I had been more careful, more through, I cold have prevented this from ever happening. Grimow slipped under our radar. And the DNA? It's obvious now looking at it that they are the same. If I had caught that last night, we could have gotten him then. There were so many opportunities that I could have seen something important, and I didn't." Reid was growing hysterical as he finished.

"Reid, we never caught Grimow because his connections to the lake were so well hidden. We didn't look at the right time period. And were you looking to see if Grimow was a chimera? No. You weren't looking for it; there's no way you would have seen it. Reid, what happened last, it's not like when we swarm a place and we have our guns drawn and ready. Reid most likely, you did react. Grimow got to you before you draw your gun. You know how fast, what is it, emphrin?

"Etomidate."

"Takes someone out. You were fighting uneven odds Reid. And, as for Kristy, I didn't speak to her that much but from what Hotch and Morgan described of her, she wouldn't hold this against you. Besides Reid, had you not been here, she probably couldn't have left the note. That note has solved the case." Gideon stated calmly.

Reid looked up again. Gideon's eyes were still kind and trusting. However, instead of that taunting Reid as it had been lately, it comforted him. He began to contemplate what Gideon had said. He knew Gideon was right in his head, but his gut didn't agree. Until he saw that Kristy, Ana, and Sara returned he knew he would feel responsible.

Suddenly, Reid's stomach took another nasty churn, and he was once again in the bathroom. Reid's body wanted the drug again; he knew that it was only going to get worse because his body would be rebelling when it didn't receive it.

When Reid finally returned from rinsing out his mouth, Gideon was snapping his cell phone shut.

"That was Hotch. Reid, they raided the house. They didn't find anything."

Reid just stood there.

"Where would he go? That was of significance to him." Reid asked.

"They don't know. They're splitting up and searching the area. There's nothing more they can do."

"Wait, we should have figured this out." Reid suddenly realized. "The address of the house was 209 Edge Drive. Grimow wouldn't go there because there was no 7. It's not part of his plan."

"So where he took them has a seven, and it's important? Reid, that could be a lot of places. I mean the first one was an abandoned building that had a fitting address. He could have taken them anywhere." Gideon reminded him.

"But he wasn't confident then. He didn't want to venture far away in case it didn't work. Now he thinks that it's destiny to happen. He would want constant reassurance that this is right."

"The lake, to remind him of his cause."

"Exactly."

"So what's important on the lake that has 7?"

"Do his in-laws own any other property at the lake?" Reid questioned.

Gideon pulled out the file.

"Yes, a storage shed."

----------

"Hotch."

Hotch was pissed. They had rushed out to the lake only to find nothing. They knew that the longer they waited the higher chance Kristy was getting more severely hurt.

"Grimow's in-laws own a storage shed on the other side of the lake." Gideon spat out.

"Gideon, what makes you think that he's there?"

"They rent number seven." 

"Okay. We're going over."

Immediately, everyone drove over to the storage shed complex. It was silent around the lake as was expected in early March. However, there were many car tracks that Hotch thought were similar to the ones that he and Morgan had found a few days earlier.

The storage shed was locked as was expected. One of the other cops pulled out pliers and pulled the lock apart.

"3,2,1" Hotch whispered as everyone stood waiting to raid the place.

"FBI! Nathan Grimow, come out with your hands up!" Morgan ordered as the door came up.

"Morgan?" came a weak response.

Everyone surveyed the area. Furniture was lying around, but a little path had been cleared. Hotch was closest and started moving back. Then he saw Kristy staggering towards him. She was bearing bruises on her face and arms.

"Agent Hotchner?" She asked with a worn out voice and a smile on her face.

"Kristy." Hotch went forward and grabbed her. She was very shaky.

"You need…to help Ana and Sara. I think they're getting… hypothermia." Kristy mumbled as Hotch guided her out front to JJ. Morgan followed Hotch back, and sure enough, Ana and Sara were lying on the floor unconscious. Their beatings were more severe and more similar to the other girls.

"Hotch, Grimow's not here." Emily called.

"He left a few hours ago." Kristy replied.

JJ was helping her to a police car where they were getting her a blanket.

"Did he say where he was going?" JJ asked.

Kristy shook her head.

"He was beating me, and then he just stopped. He started muttering, and I think he said something about finishing something. Then he just ran out and locked the door. I don't know anything else. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry Kristy. You did your best. Just relax." JJ assured her.

"Is Reid okay?"

"Yeah, he's going to be fine."

Kristy nodded. JJ finally got her sat down, and Kristy promptly shut her eyes. Morgan and Hotch were helping to get Sara and Ana out while Emily called Gideon, or so JJ assumed.

-------------

"Where would he go?" Hotch asked.

Those who had gone on the raid were standing outside the storage shed talking to Reid and Gideon over the phone.

"He needs to go somewhere that's important to him, and most likely the number seven is involved somehow." Reid stated.

"That could be almost anywhere." Morgan stated.

"Kristy thinks he said something about finishing. Where would he go if he wanted to finish?" JJ pondered.

"Well, no more girls can be taken, so we shouldn't have to worry about him taking another hostage." Emily said.

"Then that would imply that this is something personal, something that he would go to before. According to his ex, he came here to be close to Scott. We can tell he's not here. No one is." Hotch added.

Reid was still pacing. He nearly fainted with relief when Hotch said that they had the girls. However, not having Grimow meant that their job was not yet done. 'Where would he go? What else is significant?'

"JJ, did Kristy say anything else?" Reid asked.

"Well, she did say that he was beating her, and he suddenly stopped which was when he left."

"Well, if he truly was finishing, maybe he's de-evolving. He didn't just stop with the other girls, he kept going. He's done, he wants to be finished." Reid cried with excitement. The final piece was coming together. "And where else to finish but the grave?" 

"You think he went to his son's grave?" Hotch questioned.

"If his son truly was the reason, then maybe when he was at the abandoned building the grave was his source of strength. At the lake, it was the accident site that kept reminding him of why he was doing this. He needed something closer to Watertown, and the only plausible thing would be his grave. If he had been visiting something that was his ex's or in-laws', they would have noticed. The grave is something that they wouldn't have." Reid concluded.

"That's in Watertown, right?" Emily asked.

"Yes." Gideon confirmed. "I'll go."

"Jason, be careful. If he's truthful about finishing, he's going to try to kill someone." Hotch openly worried.

"Just get the girls back. I'll get Grimow." Gideon assured him.

Gideon snapped his phone shut.

"You'll be okay, right?" He asked as he turned to Reid.

"Yeah. Go ahead. The others will be back soon enough." Reid stated.

Gideon nodded as he turned out of the room. Reid slumped back on the bed.

Relief washed over him. Even if he ended up being wrong about Grimow being at the cemetery, Kristy was okay. He had a feeling everything would turn out okay.

Reid's body began to shut down, and he drifted off. He wanted to be awake when they got back, but he was suddenly so drowsy.

-----------------------------------------

(Okay, pretend with me that lets me use asterisks. I wasn't aware the didn't)

The truck Gideon was driving up in finally pulled into the cemetery. On the other side, sure enough, Grimow was sitting in front of a grave. Snipers were put into place and other precautions were taken before it was finally cleared for Gideon to approach him.

"Nathanial Grimow?"

"Ah, agent, Gideon I believe? I see you've joined me." Grimow replied with a sad smile. He didn't turn to look Gideon in the eye.

"It's over Grimow. We got you." 

"Took a little longer than you expected. As I told Kristy, DNA can be confusing."

"You knew you were a chimera, and just to confuse us you gave us the opposite sample."

"I know what I did. You don't need to tell me." 

"Then why don't you tell me why you did it. Why did you kidnap and beat seven girls in the course of nine days?"

"Because they needed it." Grimow said softly. He finally turned to look directly at Gideon. "They knew better, yet they didn't act better. I saw them in December! They needed to be taught a lesson! I did it. Because of me, parents won't have to go trough the hurt I did."

"You put a lot of parents through a lot of misery. Two girls are still in comas." Gideon reminded him.

Grimow's eyes filled with tears. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that. But it doesn't matter anymore."

The next few moments went in slow motion for Gideon. Grimow moved his folded hands to reveal a gun and put it to his own head. Before Gideon could grab it, a shot rang out, and Grimow's lifeless body was falling to the ground.

------------------------

JJ walked down to the hallway to Reid's room. Hopefully, the doctor would let him out in the next few hours as she had predicted earlier. She was about to say something when she saw that he was asleep on the bed. He had changed clothes, and looked normal again.

She figured it would be best to wait. Hotch and Morgan had gone down to the cemetery to help finish Grimow's mess. The whole team was still in shock that Grimow had committed suicide.

Emily and JJ had returned to the hospital to make sure the girls arrived all right. Sara and Ana were definitely in for a tough recovery. Kristy had once again been lucky. She would be fine in a few days.

JJ stared down at Reid. Sadly, she thought that his face was slightly paler that when they left a few hours earlier. Other than that, he appeared fine.

Emily walked in a few minutes later.

"Hey."

"Oh, hey Emily. What's going on?" 

"Well, I was talking to the doctors, and Cora woke up this morning. Haley should really soon. Ginger and Rachael are both making really big improvements and they should go home in a few days." Emily whispered sitting down next to JJ.

They chatted a little while longer. A nurse later entered the room.

"Agents, it's okay to see Kristy now. I can escort you." The nurse said.

"Do you think we should wake Reid up?" Emily asked.

"Yeah probably. He'll most likely want to talk to her." JJ replied as she began to shake him gently.

Reid slowly opened his eyes.

"JJ? Emily? Did everything go okay?" He asked as he began to get up.

"Yeah everything went fine. You were right; Grimow was at the cemetery." JJ answered.

"Good." More relief entered Reid.

"However, he committed suicide before Gideon could officially arrest him." Emily added.

Reid sighed.

"And everything else?" He continued.

"Well, we were going to see Kristy now and begin to ask questions." JJ said.

Reid nodded and with JJ's assistance the three agents began to head to her room.

----------------------------

"Wow."

That was the greeting they received from Kristy.

"What?" Emily asked.

"You look really different in street clothes." She clarified looking at Reid.

"Oh, well, hospital gowns are only so comfortable." Reid replied as he sat down in a chair next to her. JJ stood next to him and Emily moved on the other side.

"Yeah." Kristy stated with her knowing smile.

Her face carried many distinct bruises. Reid could also count four areas of stitches. It amazed him that she could still smile.

"How are you feeling?"

"Okay. Been better, been worse. Did you find him?"

JJ, Reid and Emily exchanged looks.

"What happened?" Kristy asked.

"He was at his son's grave." JJ began. "Gideon went to get him to surrender."

"He killed himself before we could arrest him." Emily concluded.

Kristy got a look of disgust on her face.

"I can't… It's just so surreal." Kristy stammered.

"If you want us to come back later, it's okay." JJ said.

"No. You need to know what happened." Kristy stated adamantly. "Where do you want me to start?" 

"Last night. I don't remember what happened." Reid instructed.

"Well, around midnight you dozed off. I was trying desperately to figure out why he wasn't the man, but I dozed off too. Next thing I know, Grimow is standing in front of me. He had a syringe and threatened to use it. He was shaking and jittery. Then, we heard a noise. He asked me if there was anyone else around. I said no, but then he opened the bathroom door anyway. A few seconds later, you were on the ground." Kristy finished quietly.

'No. I didn't, did I really?' Reid thought. 'I can't believe I used it while I was here.' Reid really wanted to beat himself up. How much lower could he get than using drugs in a hospital?

"Then he kind of spazzed. He started walking circles and mumbling something. I tried to talk to him, but he only said one thing to me. I asked him why they didn't figure out it was him because of the DNA, and he got this really crazy grin on his face and said that DNA can confuse people. Other than that, anything I asked or just angered him. Finally, he figured out his plan I guess. He pulled you into the bathroom. Then he took your gun, badge, wallet, anything that he thought would identify you. He grabbed my clothes and told me to put them on." Kristy continued. "I said no."

"What?" Reid blurted out. "You were in a hostage situation. You always should do what the hostage taker tells you."

"I would have, but thankfully, you told me everything I needed to know. You said that he wants his victims to be aware of their beating, their punishment. I knew he wouldn't shoot me. If he did, he wouldn't get any release because I wouldn't feel the beating. I also knew he wouldn't shoot in a hospital, and if he was crazy enough to do it, I figured I was in a pretty good spot for it to happen." Kristy replied with a smile.

"Kristy, do you realize-" Emily began.

"how stupid and potentially life-threatening that was? Yeah. But I figured the longer I kept him, the safer I would turn out. Didn't work in the end though." She added bitterly.

"What happened? We know that you left, and that you were wearing your street clothes." JJ responded.

"Well, he convinced me to follow his orders." Kristy replied shortly.

"How?" Reid pushed.

"Do you really want to know?" Kristy asked after a moment. She looked directly at Reid. "He turned and put the gun to your head."

Never did Reid see that coming. Immediately his mind went into overdrive of flashbacks and sweat began to come over his entire body. Tobias was standing in front of him, asking him to condemn someone who was innocent. Then the gun shot came…

"And he said that he would shoot you if I didn't follow his orders. I knew he didn't care about you, or even the fact that you were an FBI agent; I did what he said."

Reid barely heard this last sentence. His mind was stuck in the cabin in Georgia. Not really thinking, he stood up and left. JJ followed him.

"Hey, Spence. Hey, it's okay." JJ comforted him as she pulled him into a hug outside Kristy's room.

Reid was still shaking. It was nice to have someone comforting him, especially JJ, but even she couldn't understand the feelings he had at the moment.

"JJ, I think I want a few moments alone. Don't worry." He added quickly as he saw JJ's face light up in protest. "I just want to think. This will pass soon enough, I just need a little bit."

JJ looked at him. He knew she would understand.

"Okay. The others should be back soon, and we'll start getting ready to head home. I'll tell them you're here." She replied as she headed back into Kristy's room.

Relief washed over Reid. He turned and headed back.

---------------------

"I'm sorry. Reid's a little sensitive about some of these topics." Emily immediately explained. "Just, pick up where you left off."

Kristy stared at her quizzically before continuing. "I convinced him to let me change in the bathroom. While Grimow was rambling I snuck the paper into my hand. It was the DNA comment that told me he was chimera. I stole a pen from Reid's pocket in the bathroom. When I got out, he told me to make the bed look like someone was sleeping. It was easy to slip the note in the covers after that. I know it wasn't exactly clear cut or anything. But you must have figured it out, right?"

"Reid did." Morgan confirmed as he walked in with JJ.

"Morgan, hey. What's going on?" Emily greeted him.

"Hotch and Gideon are searching his house. He didn't give Gideon all of the answers that we needed, like why he came back or why he waited. However, he most likely wrote everything down." Morgan replied. "I came back to give Reid his bag back. CSI's said that Grimow barely touched, they found it in his truck, so it was cleared. However, it was Reid's gun that he used. We might not get that back."

"Reid probably won't want it back." JJ said quietly.

"Is Reid okay?" Emily whispered, seeing that Kristy was dozing a bit and not paying attention.

"He's going to be. He wanted a few moments alone to think." JJ replied. "We better finish this. Then we can let Kristy rest."

"You're right. Kristy, how did you get out of the hospital?" Emily asked.

"Grimow knew all the exits for staff and everything. They weren't watched, and he took me out through one of them. He threw me in his SUV, and we drove out to the lake. He took me into the storage shed and began to beat me." Kristy paused here and her eyes began to widen and water. "He kept shouting things like 'Knew better' and 'Punishment'. I just kept hoping that he wouldn't go completely crazy. He still had Reid's gun. And then, he just stopped. He stood up, and looked around like he didn't know why he was here or what was going on. He turned around and left. I tried to help Ana and Sara, but there wasn't a lot I could do. And then, you guys showed up. You know the rest."

The others nodded. 

"So he didn't say anything about why he wanted you?" Morgan asked.

"Nope. Or if he did, he wasn't comprehensive enough for me to know." Kristy then yawned. "I'm sorry, but I'm really tired. I'll talk to you some more later if you need me to."

"No, that's fine."

---------------------

"So, what next?" Emily pondered once they exited.

"I'll call Hotch and Gideon. If they need help, we can go over. If not, maybe we can head back to the hotel, you know start packing." Morgan replied.

"Start to head home." Emily concluded with a smile.

"Hey, I'm gonna go see if I can talk to Reid yet." JJ said.

Emily gave her a look of warning while Morgan gave her one of understanding.

----------------

Reid was sitting on his bed. He felt like he had just woken up from being induced with twice as much Rohypnol. Thoughts were cluttering in his head. He felt dizzy and he could depict if it was from the drug or the same thoughts and memories.

Morgan had given Reid his satchel back. The drug was in there. Sure enough, the amount in one of the vials was lower than Reid remembered.

'That's why I couldn't protect Kristy.' Reid thought bitterly. 'I was drugging myself. Why? How was I so stupid?'

Reid began to feel tears well in his eyes. It was just too much. He couldn't take it all. Everything was beginning to merge and become too confusing.

Reid didn't even realize how his fingers worked like magic these days. In the minutes that his thoughts rampaged, they had prepared a needle full of the drug. Actually, fuller. Reid wanted to escape, just like Tobias had originally said the drug would accomplish. He wanted to get away, to not have to think, to remember, to know.

'How lucky I am that Morgan gave that back.' Reid said inside his head.

He shoved the depressor down, and let into his body the most massive dose he had ever taken. Reid never knew how he was even conscious long enough to hide the needle and drug. Later, he never remembered falling back into his pillows. All Reid later remembered was what Tobias did indeed promise him, an escape.

----------------

JJ turned into his room. She once again saw that Reid was asleep. In all honesty, she was about to leave. It was difficult however; it had been a while since Reid had been looking peaceful. Then something caught her eye.

"Spence. Hey Spence, wake up." She repeated as she had 45 minutes earlier. Only this time, he didn't wake up. He didn't even move. In fact, he didn't even take a breath.

"Spence!"


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Once again, Thanks for the reviews! I hope you enjoy this next chapter. I don't know if it's my best, but the next one will be better.

I'm winding down. I'm projecting two more chapters or so, and the epilogue. I don't know just yet. I want to finish before "Open Season" because then I'll start to get too close to semester tests.

Once again, I don't own Criminal Minds.

----------------

"Hotch."

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Hey Morgan. Okay, we're about to come back. We found a diary where he conveniently rambled about why he was doing everything all of his reasons."

"Well, why did he go after Kristy again? Why did he wait?"

"According to what we've gone through so far, he didn't want to do something on the anniversary of the funeral, which is why he quit on March 7. He decided to go after Kristy because he didn't feel that she truly got the message. He rambled for days about whether or not to do it." Hotch stated. "It's going to take a while to read through it all."

"Okay. Do you need our help?"

"No. We should be good."

"Okay then… JJ? What's going on?"

Morgan suddenly stopped speaking.

"Morgan? Are you still there?"

"Hotch, I think you need to get down here." Morgan said quietly. 

"What?"

"No, scratch that. You need to get down here now." Morgan nearly yelled as he flipped his phone shut.

"Morgan." Hotch exclaimed. "Gideon, we have to go back to the hospital."

"What for? Aren't they just talking to Kristy?" Gideon asked as he flipped through parts of the diary.

"Morgan didn't say. He did sound really urgent though." Hotch replied as he got his coat.

Gideon set the diary down and followed suit.

------------

"What's going on?" Gideon asked in a friendly voice when he and Hotch met the others in the hallway where Reid's room was located. However, it only took one look from the others for him and Hotch to realize that such a voice was not meant for now. 

"It's Reid." Emily simply said.

"Is he okay?" Hotch inquired in a worried voice.

"No." JJ whispered. "He quit breathing."

Hotch and Gideon were dumbstruck.

"What do you mean he quit breathing?" Hotch asked.

"I went into his room to tell him that we were leaving. I assumed he was asleep, and when I tried to wake him, he didn't move. He wasn't breathing either. I called for help, and doctors and nurses started rushing in." JJ replied. She tried to hold back her tears. It had scared her so much. Instead she just gave another shudder.

"Have the doctors said anything?" Gideon asked.

"No. They asked us to leave and have just kept walking by." Morgan replied with spite.

"Well, we'll see if they'll talk to us. Stay here." Hotch ordered as they headed back towards Reid's room.

"Agents." The doctor greeted them as she exited the room.

"Is he okay?" Hotch immediately demanded.

"It's a good thing he was here when it happened." She replied.

"What did happen?" Gideon asked.

"From what we can tell, he went into a respiratory depression. His respiratory rate is incredibly low, as well as his blood pressure, and his heart beat is irregular. These are all symptoms of narcotics and benzodiazepines."

"What?" 

"Hydromorphone and Rohypnol. Only, if this is a reaction to the drugging, I think his body would have reacted earlier. We're running tests to see if it was something to do with what happened this morning."

"Could something have not appeared right away?" Gideon asked concerned.

"While it is possible, your machine should have picked up everything."

"What else are you doing?" Hotch asked.

"We had to put him on a ventilator. While he was actually breathing, it was so slow, it was incredibly hazardous. I should give you a fair warning, if he was like that for a long time, there's a small possibility of brain damage."

Those last words struck fear in Hotch's and Gideon's hearts. Reid without his brain? That was unfathomable. Reid was known for his intelligence. It didn't define him as a person, but it was a major part of him.

"Once we identify the cause, we'll try to reverse it. Then we can bring his bp, and breath rate back up."

"Can't you give him something to reverse the drugs now if that's most likely the case?" Hotch demanded.

"I can give him something to reverse the Rohypnol. I can give him something to reverse the Hydromorphone. I can't give him both, and I don't want to give him either until I know what I'm dealing with. We're watching him. He's going to be monitored very closely. When we find what's wrong, we'll reverse it."

"Is it all right if we see him?" Gideon asked in a near whisper.

"You can, but it's not like this morning. Until we find what's wrong and reverse it, he probably won't wake up. Also, there's going to be a lot more activity." She said as she turned around and walked away.

Hotch peered into the window on Reid's door. He was ghost white with tubes running all over his face. He could see the machine push the air into his frail body, and it made Hotch feel sick.

"Gideon, I don't think we should stay with him."

"What? Why not?"

"Because, think about, what are we going to do? The doctor said he's not going to wake up. Being in there won't help our morale."

"We have a team member down. Our morale has already taken a nasty blow."

"It just won't help."

"What do you propose we do?"

"Maybe Grimow changed something with this time. Kristy was the one who got away. He sat there and seethed about this for two days. We have two day's worth of diary entries to go through. He might have changed what was in the drugs, and he might have written it down."

"Okay. We'll get the others to help." Gideon said reassuringly.

He had no problem going in there with Reid. He was confused about why Hotch was so nervous and afraid to go near Reid. Come to think of it, Hotch had been just as nervous this morning. Gideon sighed. He and Hotch then approached the others.

"How is he?" 

"What's going on?"

"Is he going to be okay?"

"He went into a respiratory depression. Once they figure out the cause, he'll be okay." Hotch answered.

"So what can we do?" Morgan asked with obvious frustration in his voice.

"We think that Grimow might have put something else in the syringe. We're going to go through his diary, see if he left anything. Or maybe he'll allude to something." Hotch stated.

"I'll help." Morgan volunteered.

"JJ, Emily, talk to Kristy. Grimow might have said something that she didn't understand then." Gideon ordered.

Emily and JJ nodded as they headed off towards the hall.

"Hey, JJ, you okay?" Emily asked quietly.

"Yeah. Not great, but I'm fine." 

"You sure?"

"It, it just scared me. This whole day has been pretty scary. I mean, at first, Reid was missing. Then he was found, and he was unconscious, and then we got Kristy, and the whole Grimow thing, and now this. But, Emily, what if he got drugged again? I mean, isn't it possible that Grimow had an accomplice who came back? Couldn't-"

"JJ, calm down. The profile says that Grimow worked alone. Besides, Reid was never the target. He was an obstacle. Let's just talk to Kristy. Maybe by the time we get back, he'll be okay." Emily comforted her.

JJ nodded, and they turned into Kristy's room where she was sleeping.

"Hey Kristy." Emily shook her shoulder gently.

"Hm? Emily? JJ? Why are you two here?"

"Kristy, we need to ask you a few questions. Usually, we wouldn't wake you up, but they're really urgent." Emily urged.

"Okay." Kristy replied as she sat up in her bed.

"Kristy, did Grimow ever say anything about the syringe? Or what might be in it?" JJ asked.

"No, I don't think so. I tried to ask him about it, but he wouldn't listen. He was pretty much out of it."

"Did he say anything about harming Reid?" Emily asked.

"No." Kristy said defiantly. She paused for a moment. "What happened? And I mean a few months ago."

Emily and JJ stared.

"What do you mean a few months ago?" JJ pondered.

"I'm guessing that a traumatic event occurred in Reid's life one-two months ago. What was it?" Kristy asked.

"How do you…?" Emily asked.

"The way he reacted to the gun to his head thing wasn't the reaction I was expecting. He seemed way too scared to be an FBI agent who has a gun." Kristy said.

"Well, there was indeed an incident about a month ago." Emily said.

"We went to interview a witness on a case in Georgia." JJ began in a zombie-like tone.

"JJ, I can tell it." Emily insisted.

"He wouldn't talk to us. Reid figured out that he was the unsub. The guy went into the barn. We followed him, I went out front and Reid went out back. He met up with the unsub, who knocked him out and took him hostage." JJ continued. She was sure that pretty soon the tears would begin to flow.

"And you?" Kristy asked, her eyes wide.

"I met up with his dogs. I was fine, but he kept Reid for two and half days before we found him. Reid had been beaten pretty badly. He was dehydrated, and exhausted." JJ finished. "He hasn't been back that long."

Kristy had a pensive look on her face. To JJ, she appeared to be thinking through much of her monologue.

"That's terrible." She finally responded.

JJ and Emily nodded.

"What happened now?" Kristy asked.

"Reid may have possibly had a reaction to something. We wanted to know if the unsub told you he put something strange in the needle." Emily said. "Thanks for answering our questions. Sorry for waking you." She continued as she stood up.

"Wait, what did Grimow put in the needle this time?" Kristy asked with anticipation in her voice.

"Uh, Etomidate, Rohypnol, and Hydromorphone." Emily replied.

"Hydromorphone?" Kristy asked quizzically.

"It's similar to heroin." Emily responded.

Kristy looked down and appeared to be muttering something herself. Suddenly her eyes widened.

"I need to speak to Gideon. Now."

-------

"Hey, got anything?" Morgan asked. They had only been looking a few minutes, but he was impatient. Reid was sick, and he hated being on the sidelines.

"No. This guy sure had anger management problems. He keeps ranting about these girls. He never spoke to them, but he accused of them being terrible people for every little thing they did. He must have stalked them for a long time." Hotch said. They were sitting in a fairly empty waiting room discussing what they were finding.

"Gideon." Emily called upon her entrance.

"Get something?" He asked hopefully.

"Not exactly. It's Kristy. She said that Grimow didn't say anything, but she also said she needs to speak to you. She pushed her way out of her room and begged JJ and me to let her see Reid. JJ is with her outside his room. She didn't want to go in. The thing is, she won't tell us what it is. She said she has to speak to you." Emily replied.

"Okay. Hotch, come on." Gideon said as they stood up.

--------

"Kristy, you needed to speak to me?" Gideon inquired as he approached her. She seemed very off. She was standing outside Reid's room, staring in. JJ stood off to the side and looked very uncomfortable.

"Yes. Alone." She reiterated.

"Anything you can say to him, you can say to us." Hotch insisted.

Kristy stared at him directly in the eye.

"No. What I have to say can only be said to Gideon."

"Kristy," Gideon reasoned.

"No. I wouldn't ask you to leave if it wasn't for the best. I promise what I'm about to tell Gideon will be told to you all as well. In due time."

Hotch wanted to attempt to reason again, but Gideon motioned with his head that it would be best to leave. Hotch was pissed. What was so important that he couldn't hear it? Gideon was not the team leader. He stormed back to the waiting room with JJ and Emily. He expected Gideon would be back soon. Forty-five minutes wasn't what he was expecting.

---------

"What is this about Kristy?" Gideon asked her calmly. "Why can't you speak to Agent Hotchner?"

"Because he's not ready to hear this. None of you truly are. But you're the closest."

"Why isn't he ready for whatever you're about to tell me?"

"Agent Gideon, do you know? Do you know about the danger your team is in?" Kristy asked him solemnly.

"What danger? There aren't threats against us."

"Not dangers from your enemies. The danger of yourselves."

"Kristy, what are you trying to say?" 

Kristy looked at Gideon straight in the eye.

"Let's start with Agent Hotchner. He's slowly deteriorating from guilt." 

Gideon was stunned at her pronouncement.

"What makes you say that?"

"His eyes. Eyes cannot tell lies while our body language can. Every time he looks at Reid, there's a look of guilt in them. It's only for a second. However, I think there's more to it. Has he seemed distracted lately?"

"A little. That doesn't mean anything about how he is feeling." Gideon reminded her.

"I told Reid that actions speak louder than words. Every person on your team, other than you, has problems that their actions are telling."

"Then why don't I know about it?" 

"I'm sure you know some, like the happier ones. Not every person has a bad problem. But no matter what, they can be distracting." 

"Educate me." 

"Garcia likes Morgan."

Gideon smiled; who didn't know that?

"He likes her back. And he's clueless on what to do about it."

Now that surprised Gideon.

"His eyes light up every time he talks to her. But they show frustration after the call."

"Garcia could have had bad news." 

"Not every time she calls. I only saw them talk a few times, but even through that you can see it. I'm sure you're aware of JJ and Reid." 

"That they…?" 

"Like each other. I don't know why they aren't dating." 

Gideon made a mental note to talk to those two. He thought they had been seeing each other occasionally and never spoke about it.

"But those are the only good ones. Your others are much more serious, like Hotch. I fear a break-down if something isn't done soon. JJ, something's really wrong with her. Not only is it guilt, it's fear, anger, so many things. I think it's related to Reid's kidnapping."

"How do you know about that?"

"I made Emily and JJ tell me. JJ said that she was with Reid. I can understand why she would feel so badly. Now, Emily, it's quite interesting. She doesn't trust, well, any of you. She trusts Hotch and you the most, but it's not saying a lot."

"Kristy, how? Why?" Gideon stuttered. Why was a girl telling about all of these problems that his team had? What did she know?

"Emily-"

"No, why are you telling me all this?" 

Kristy smiled.

"Your team needs to be ready for the last thing I have to say. If they're not, I don't know if they can handle it. I didn't want the others here because it will anger them more that it's me they would be hearing this from. It's Reid who should tell you."

"What makes you think I don't already possibly know?" Gideon asked.

"Gideon, if you knew this, well, your current situation would be a lot different." Kristy said. "I shouldn't be telling you this. It's not right. He should be."

She started to pace.

"Kristy, tell me. We'll figure out the other details later." 

"But, Gideon, it's not right." She repeated. "I'm not right."

"Does it have to do with this?" Gideon asked as he gestured to Reid's room. Kristy nodded.

"I want him to tell you everything, mostly because I don't know why a lot of things have happened. I don't know why Hotch is feeling guilty. I don't know why Morgan can't ask Garcia out. I don't why JJ feels guilty, and I don't know why Emily wouldn't trust you." Kristy stammered. She looked into the window again. "Look on his right foot. In between his toes." She spat out. Kristy tried to leave.

"Kristy, what?" 

"Do it."

"Kristy, wait. Stay here." Gideon ordered. She obeyed reluctantly, and Gideon went inside the room.

A few nurses had gone in and out while Kristy had been telling Gideon everything. One was still remaining, checking something on Reid's face went Gideon entered.

Kristy stood, watching outside the door. She hoped she had been wrong. Gideon talked to the nurse. Now, she was looking at him like he was crazy. However, she went ahead, pulled the covers back, and pulled off Reid's right sock. There were two bandages, one between his big and second toe, one between his second and third. The nurse pulled them off, and Gideon's look told Kristy that she had indeed been right.

Gideon looked back at her and stormed out the room.

"How long have you known?" He growled.

"I only figured it out when Emily said that Reid got hit with Heroin. I put it together."

"How did I not see this?" Gideon muttered to himself. It couldn't be true, this was Reid. He didn't do drugs.

"You were blinded by trust. I mean, look at Reid. He's not exactly the poster boy for future drug addicts." 

"Don't say that. He's not an addict." 

"Ask him yourself. I'm sure that's what the drug screen will come back to say."

"You said that Prentiss doesn't trust any of us."

"Yes."

"Then she wasn't blind. Why didn't she see this?"

"She was probably more aware. But, I'm sure no one was expecting this." Kristy said. She peered into the window again.

"Even if he has been taking drugs, we don't know it is related to this." Gideon said hopefully.

Kristy nodded.

Gideon had now started to pace. How long? When did he start? How was this possible? What else didn't he know? Kristy turned around and left. This time, Gideon didn't protest. Instead, he went back into Reid's room.

Gideon was torn between two images. One was the Reid that had first come to the BAU, at the small age of 21. He was so innocent. The other was the image of his foot, with so many needle marks in it. He didn't know which one to believe. Staring down at Reid, he hoped that it was the first one. Maybe there was logical explanation for all of this.

Gideon's eyes traveled the room. He then spotted Reid's satchel and realized that he maybe wouldn't have to wait for the doctor. After rummaging through the front pockets, he found it. Two small glass bottles and a needle.

His slid into a chair. Reid really had been willingly taking drugs. This was making its way into Gideon's head when the doctor entered again.

"Agent Gideon, his screen came back. We found an-"

"Excess amount of Dilaudid." Gideon finished for her.

"Uh, yes. An overdose amount. As we speak, a nurse is getting some Naloxone, it will reverse it enough to improve his symptoms." 

"What's going to happen next?"

"Well, the nurse told me about what you found. I can advise you on programs and other ways to help him." 

"Not about that. What will happen tonight?" Gideon asked. He didn't want the other to know. Ever. Of course, that was impossible. But Gideon wanted to hold off for as long as he could. 

"Well, he might wake up, but tonight's going to be rough. I would like to move him so we'll be able to watch him more closely. His body is going to have to recover. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

Gideon looked up at her.

"No. Yes, well maybe. My team members aren't ready for this."

"You're going to have to tell them."

"Yes. But not tonight. We have some other things to work on first." Gideon said standing up.

"If you want, I can tell you team members that we don't want anyone to see him tonight. We can also start running test to assess the damage. He probably won't be awake for much of the night. Come by tomorrow. He should be ready." The doctor replied.

"Thank you." Gideon walked off quietly.. He didn't know where he was heading, but he found a different empty room that was also empty. Collapsing into a nearby chair, Gideon finally let out a sob.

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Okay, you've read it. Now please Review it!


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Okay, this chapter is fairly short. I was writing this, and my plan was to go where the next chapter is going to end. Then I realized that I was over 3500 words when I was trying to combine the two, and I was maybe only halfway. So, I just went to about where I thought I could make a somewhat logical ending. This is why the ending seems kind of off.

The next chapter will be the last full chapter, then a short epilogue. Or at least that's the plan now, which is good becasue this got way longer than I expected. We'll see how it goes, especially considering that my original idea involved flying monkeys and nuclear confetti. Okay, it didn't, but it did involve Reid going to the hospital because of a lasting injury type thing from Charles slapping his foot with a stone. Wow, this wound up really far away from that, but I'm happy with what's come of it.

Once again, I don't own Criminal Minds. It doesn't look that good to have 'Platypus' on the end credits, or so I'm told.

And, of course, thanks for the support!!

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After a half hour, Gideon finally felt ready to return to the others. Although he didn't check first, he felt that he looked normal enough for the others not to suspect what he had been doing. He had a plan ready.

"Gideon what happened?"

"What did Kristy say?"

"Where have you been?"

"What's going?"

"Why can't we see him?"

Gideon noticed that the diaries had been set down, indicating that the doctor had already spoken to them.

"He's…he's going to be fine. It's late, we're tired. Let's go back to the hotel." Gideon replied as he started to leave.

"Wait, Gideon, you gotta at least tell us something." Morgan yelled going after him.

Gideon stopped.

"I'll talk to you, when we get back." Gideon answered. He continued to leave.

------------

Gideon decided to start with JJ and Emily. If Kristy was right, and she had proven herself to be close the majority of the time, then Gideon wanted to solve the problems of the others tonight as much as possible. They could deal with Reid tomorrow.

"Gideon?" Emily answered.

"Can I talk to you privately?"

"Uh, yeah." Emily answered as she shut the door. They walked down to the lounge which was thankfully vacated.

"Is Reid-"

"How have you been doing? You know, adjusting to the BAU?"

"What?"

"How have you been handling this?"

"Uh, okay I guess. What does this have to do with Reid?"

"I never said this was about Reid. I'm here to talk to you."

"Uh, all right."

"Emily, do you feel comfortable with us?"

"Yes." She replied, but with a moment's hesitation.

"More than colleagues. With the BAU, you start to become close. It's one of those jobs where you get close to the people you work with, you become friends, even family."

"Well, I'm not to that point yet." Emily said. "But I am really enjoying it. And I'm enjoying getting to know you guys." Only, her voice didn't sound sincere. She seemed to be faking it. "Gideon, what are you getting at?"

"Emily, I just wanted to make sure that you are completely comfortable with the team. We've taken our time to adjust, and I wanted to make sure that you had as well." Gideon replied.

Emily started to look away. She turned her head down.

"Well, I guess I'm not completely comfortable. I mean, I do trust you as agents. I know that you've got my back when we're in the field. But, I guess, when it comes to more personal things, I don't really trust you guys."

"May I ask why?"

"I've never really trust anyone I guess. Kind of a learned habit from when I was a kid. But when I first joined, I thought that was going to change. You guys were really accepting, and I knew about what happened to Elle. I felt bad about taking her place."

"What changed?"

"Well, Reid started to act funny."

Gideon's blood started to run cold. If she knew and didn't say anything…

"And then he said something that made me question just how well I knew the team." Emily continued.

"What?"

"We were working on the case in Houston, and I told him that I've never seen him act like the way he was. He told me that I've only known him for a few months, and that I had no way to really know."

"He was probably frustrated or angry."

"But he was right Gideon. I don't really know any of you. And I noticed that the others were changing slightly, and I began to fear that the way you guys were acting at first was, like, a happy façade, and that you would slowly show your real selves. I know that it's pathetic, and irrational at best, but I've gotten hurt trusting others. I didn't want to give people who I don't even know my trust."

"Is that why you questioned whether or not Reid ran off?"

"Yeah."

Gideon considered this for a moment.

"You can trust us Emily. We may not always do what's right, we're only human, but we've shown you who we are. That's subject to change sometimes, especially with our moods. And don't worry, we won't hurt you."

Emily nodded. Gideon and she talked some more, not so much about what she was going through, and not about Reid. When she left, Gideon asked her to bring JJ down.

When JJ entered, she looked her eyes were puffy, but her voice was calm and strong. It was much more like her press conference voice than her normal, everyday voice.

"You wanted to speak to me?" She greeted him.

Gideon repeated the same process. Only, JJ cracked much more easily than Emily.

"I feel guilty a lot of the time. I mean, if we had stuck together, Reid wouldn't have gotten kidnapped." JJ said, tears flowing down her face. "He told me not to feel bad, but I just can't."

"JJ, you didn't cause it."

"I know that. I understand that. I just don't believe it. It comes back to me in my nightmares. Sometimes it's just Hankel's dogs. Others, it's Reid. Only it's worse, worse than what really happened. I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in a long time."

Then it was apparent to Gideon. JJ had a lot of makeup, too much, underneath her eyes.

"And I get angry when you can tell, you can tell when you look into his eyes that he's hurting. It just makes me so pissed." JJ stated as she stood and began to pace.

Gideon realized then just how much she really did care about Reid. He often thought of the younger members as brothers and sisters. This meant that he and Hotch were the parents, and he didn't know who would claim to be the mother. But, now, he saw that JJ and Reid were much more than that.

"JJ, you care for Reid. Does he know?"

JJ laughed.

"We haven't really talked about something like that since our date last year. Don't ask. We made this pact to not discuss it." JJ replied with a smile still on her face. "In the end, it was a decision made on both parts to not go forward."

"That was then. How do you feel now?"

JJ didn't know what to say. She had no problem continuing her relationship with Reid. But, did he? They really had never discussed something like that in such a long time. Her life had moved forward, a date every now and then. She also knew that Reid's had too. But maybe, just maybe, it was time to bring it up again.

"I don't know. Well, I know how I feel. I just don't know if it matters."

"JJ, what you feel does matter. Keeping your anger bottled, your guilt, your fear, it will come back to bite you."

"I know. I didn't think there was ever a good time to bring it up. We've been busy lately, and there have been bigger things to worry about."

Gideon comforted JJ, and got her composed again. He walked back with her to her room, and he knew that she was doing much better by the time he had. Feeling that his team was already healing, he headed to Morgan and Reid's room.

"Gideon?"

"Can I come in?"

Morgan let him through. The TV was on, but too low to hear. It appeared that Morgan had just been sitting on his bed.

"Need something?"

"How you been holding up?"

"Me? Fine."

"Not just today, I mean lately."

"Fine." Morgan said, but really gave off any message but. "Are you going to tell me anything about Reid?"

Gideon shook his head. Morgan looked pissed and sat down on his bed. He peered off into space.

"Girl trouble?"

Morgan looked taken aback, but then chuckled.

"Yeah, I wish that was it though." He looked down at Reid's empty bed. "Been a little more lately."

"Morgan, I'm right here. Talk to me."

"Well, lately, I've been trying to get this girl. I lost my nerve every time I tried to talk to her. Then this happened, and I've been feeling bad because I should have been there for Reid. I don't know, I guess I feel I've been selfish because I'm worrying about something so dumb."

"Do you really care about her?"

"Yeah." Morgan replied with a smile.

"Then it's not dumb. Real, true care for another person, it's never dumb." Gideon replied with a fatherly smile.

It pleased Gideon that this was so simple. JJ really scared him when she started talking about nightmares. Emily's had been simpler than he imagined as well. He and Morgan talked for a while longer. Gideon never revealed to Morgan that he knew who he liked. Morgan kept trying to get Gideon to talk about Reid, to which he refused. There was only one more person who needed to know about him tonight.

"You decided to come back." Hotch said as Gideon entered the room again.

"Hotch, we need to talk."

"Good."

"Not about Reid. We will. I promise. Hotch, how have things been with Haley and Jack?"

Hotch was so surprised by Gideon's question, he wasn't able to hide his horrified look when he thought about home.

"Hotch?"

"Well, not fantastic."

"Aaron, are you and Haley….?"

"We're not splitting up. Yet."

"What?"

"We've been fighting more lately. I haven't been home as much lately, and when I am, it feels like I'm on eggshells. I don't know. I used to be able to have a good home life and professional life, but now I can't. And, I do think that at this rate, Haley and I could someday, well, split up."

"Hotch, if you needed time or couldn't go on a case, why didn't you say something?"

"Because I still have to do my job."

"Taking a break doesn't mean you're not doing your job. Hotch, family is more important than any job."

"Can we truly say that Jason? Look at our job. We try to save people's lives. We can't say that they're less important."

"Aaron, you have to save your own life. Haley and Jack are the two best things you have. Don't lose them."

Hotch nodded. He then looked away, as if he was thinking about something.

"I think we should give everyone a break when they get back." Gideon said after a few moments.

"Why?"

"We're all trying to heal." Gideon then went into a minor description of what everyone was going through. "And, feeling guilty for Reid is a major part of everyone's problems."

"Put me on that list."

"Hotch,"

"Save it. I know the facts. I know that none of us caused it, but it doesn't help Jason."

"Well, Hotch, it's about to get worse."

"Why?"

Gideon sighed, stood up, and went over to his coat. He had taken the vials with him. After pulling them out, he handed them over to Hotch.

"Jason, what are these for?"

"I found them in Reid's bag."

"Found? As in…?"

"Yes."

"Reid?"

"Yes."

Hotch sunk down into his bed.

"No. Not Reid. Not him."

"Hotch, I had a nurse look at his foot. There were dozens of needle marks in between his toes."

"He hid this from us?"

"Would Reid ever come out into the open about something like this?"

"No, but this is huge. I mean, these are drugs, and it's Reid. Wait, is this why he passed out? Is this why he quit breathing?"

Gideon nodded. "He overdosed."

Hotch just began to shake his head.

"Jason, what are we going to do? What can we do?"

"He needs help. We'll figure out the details later."

"Jason, procedure says that I have to fire Reid. I can't do that." Hotch stammered.

"We'll make sure you don't have to. If we get the help he needs, give him a few months off, he'll come back Hotch."

"What did the doctor say? Do we know how long? How it started? How did he hide this? How did we not know?"

"No. She said that tonight was going to be rough for him, and they were going to run tests tonight. We can see him tomorrow."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Hotch, this is heroin. He's going to have to detox before we can take him back. I think that tomorrow, we need to talk to him first. Get the full story. After that, I think he needs to talk to the others. I didn't tell them anything. I think that should be up to Reid. Hotch, it's best for everyone to go home tomorrow. We're done with the case. The girls, they're starting to heal. The unsub's down. I'll stay with Reid, until he's ready. We'll come back, and we'll get him help."

"Are you sure? I mean, we all want to stay, until he's better."

"Hotch, Reid isn't going to want us crowding over him. Not now, especially not now."

Hotch nodded.

"Jason, how? How did we not see this?"

"I don't know." Gideon replied sadly.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: My last full chapter…… I don't know what to say. Well, other than thank you so much for the reviews, keep them coming, I don't own Criminal Minds but I should, and, wait no, that covers it. Enjoy!

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Reid began to feel consciousness set in. It felt different than last time though. Now, he felt cold. Instead of JJ's hand entwined with his, there were tubes and other hard objects running all over his body. The hospital smell was still there. Then he put it together and snapped his eyes open.

He couldn't talk. There was a tube down his throat. Tubes were indeed running all over his face and arms. He could feel patches attached to his chest and head. Monitors and other machines were around him. He then saw that he was no longer in the same room. Instead, he was in a more open space. It took Reid a few minutes to recognize that the table was a nurses' station. Which only meant…

"Hey, you decided to wake up." A male nurse was standing next to him, smiling. Reid tried to answer but the tube down his throat was obstructing this act. "That's okay. I'll talk to the doctor. Your respiratory rate should be high enough now." He turned and left.

'Respiratory rate? Breathing tube? Did I pass out?' Reid looked around for some information. 'Where's the team? What time is it? What's going on?'

Another man accompanied the nurse when he returned.

"Okay, Mr. Reid, I think we can remove this tube now." He said as they both began to move around. A few minutes later, Reid could feel the tube painfully come out of his chest. "Okay, I'm going to need you to cough it out."

Cough? For Reid, it was more like trying to spit while having to breathe at the same time. He was gasping for breath when they finally got it out. They immediately put an oxygen mask over his face. After a few minutes, Reid felt he could breathe normally.

"What's going on?" He wheezed after removing the mask.

"Shh. Best to give your throat a rest for a while." The nurse encouraged as he gave Reid some water, which Reid was grateful for. He was feeling alert enough to notice some of the finer details of what was around him.

He saw that there was a chair next to his bed. Someone could have possibly been here before. How late was it? Reid's satchel was sitting on the chair. But something was wrong; the front pocket was open. The wrong pocket to be open.

Reid panicked. He wiggled the toes on his right foot. Instead of feeling his sock, he felt bed sheets. The band-aids that he always made sure were there were gone as well.

'They know. That's why they're not here.' Reid was happy that the nurse and doctor were not asking him to speak. His world was crashing down. 'I've been fired by now. There goes my life. What will the others think? What will I do now?'

"Mr. Reid? We have to get a MRI scan." The doctor said as he and the nurse began to move Reid's bed.

'MRI?'

"What?" Reid managed to whisper.

"You went into a respiratory depression. We don't know long you were going with as little oxygen as you were, so we need to make sure that there wasn't any brain damage." The doctor explained.

Reid passed out.

----------------

"The plane will be here tomorrow. I already called the others to tell them to pack. I also told them that we're going to see Reid." Gideon told Hotch.

After Gideon shared Reid's predicament with him, Hotch had been sitting on the bed, too shocked to speak. Gideon had taken care of calling the office for the plane.

"Hotch, talk to me."

"I was thinking about how we're going to deal with this back at Quantico."

Gideon became extremely nervous. When he had first said that he couldn't fire Reid, Hotch was shocked and scared. Gideon had only said that he wouldn't have to fire him because he had needed Hotch to concentrate on other matters. Even if Reid was no longer going to be an agent, Gideon knew he was still going to need their help. However, Gideon didn't think that Reid was going to be allowed to stay. It hurt him to think that, but he didn't see any way that it would work.

"Gideon, you were right that we're going to help him. He'll recover; we'll make sure of that. But, the FBI does not stand for drugs at all. You know that. I don't want to fire him Gideon. I mean, this is pretty much all he has. He's dedicated to this job. He's not the kind of person I should be letting go." Hotch said looking Gideon in the eye.

"I know Hotch."

"And yet, I have to do it." Hotch sighed.

Gideon walked over to Hotch. At a loss of words, Gideon just clapped his shoulder.

-----------

Reid awoke a while later. He saw lights passing above him, and could feel himself moving. Then it hit him; respiratory depression, brain damage, MRI scan.

'I feel normal. Surely nothing happened. How much did I take? I just wanted to escape, not lose my brain!' Reid could feel a sob start to come up. He suppressed it, but he did get the attention of the nurse.

"Hey. We're taking you back now." He greeted Reid cheerfully.

'If something truly horrible had happened, he wouldn't be that chipper. Unless I went so far backwards that he can be like that to me…'

"What time is it?" Reid asked, deciding to be neutral.

"About one in the morning."

'1 a.m.? I was talking to Kristy at 4 p.m. What did I do?'

"What happened?" Reid asked again as they approached the area he woke up in again.

"Well, one of your team members found you passed out in your room. Your respiratory rate was low, and so was your bp. They did a drug test; sir, you overdosed on Dilaudid."

'That's how full the needle was? What did I do?' Reid cringed.

"We've been giving you something to counteract it for hours. Your vitals went up, and they are no longer at dangerous levels. We just did your MRI. The doctor's looking at it now, but you should be fine. Your team said that at most you were alone a half hour and Dilaudid needs some time to work. Besides, you're conversing quite normally, and you appear to be digesting this information. I'm sure everything will be fine." The nurse replied as he finished settling Reid back in.

"Did, did my team find out?" Reid asked timidly.

"I'm not for sure who found out what, but I know that at least one man on your team knows."

'Hotch or Gideon? Hotch will be pissed; Gideon will be disappointed. Which one's worse?' Reid worried himself into a fitful rest. He didn't think he was going to get much of that in the next few days; detox of Dilaudid caused sleep difficulties.

----------

Hotch and Gideon were waiting for the other members of the team the next morning. They had decided to go to the hospital as early as they could, especially since they didn't know how long this could take.

The tension between the members, while present, was different. Gideon noticed that everyone seemed to be more relaxed, save Hotch. Maybe Kristy was right; maybe because they had taken care of their personal issues, or started to, they would be more prepared for Reid.

"We're going to speak to him first." Hotch ordered as they walked in the hospital.

"Hotch, Gideon, what's going on? Come on, he's our friend too, we deserve to know." Morgan pleaded as he and the others begrudgingly returned to the waiting room.

"I don't think they heard you." JJ said quietly. Hotch and Gideon had taken off without even responding to Morgan's outburst.

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Reid saw Gideon and Hotch coming. He immediately tensed up and started to sweat a bit. Luckily, they had to ask to see Reid, and when the nurse heard who they were, he had to talk to them for a few minutes. The whole thing was so nerve wracking. Finally, they were able to get away.

"Reid." Gideon greeted.

Gideon looked disappointed; he knew. Hotch looked angry, disappointed, and sad; did he know? He had to by now, especially if Gideon did.

Reid tried to respond, but fear and nervousness had temporarily made it impossible to speak.

"The MRI came back. You're fine."

Reid was too scared to care.

"Reid, last night I found these in your bag." Gideon pulled out the vials. Reid started trembling; it was all over now. "We wanted you to tell us first what's really happening."

"What?" Reid stared at Gideon and Hotch. What were they after? They knew he was doing drugs. What would change how it happened?

"We want to know what happened, but we want to know what you have to say about it. Reid, when did this start? How did it start?" Hotch asked.

Reid thought for a minute, trying to compile the history of the last month.

"When we were in Georgia, Tobias injected me three times." Reid found it more difficult to talk about than he thought. Then again, no one knew that Tobias had done this.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hotch demanded.

"Because of what I did after I shot him." Reid whispered. The tears were coming; Reid wasn't going to try to stop them this time.

"What Reid?"

"I went back to Tobias's body and grabbed the vials he left."

Hotch and Gideon were both shocked. They had wanted to hear that it was all an accident or set up.

"Reid, no. You didn't!" Hotch exclaimed.

Reid could only nod. "I don't know why I did it. I guess I wanted them on some level." Reid continued. "I mean, why else would I do it?"

"Reid, you-" Hotch tried to growl.

"What happened next?" Gideon interrupted. He knew that Hotch was getting angry, but at the moment it wasn't going to help.

"Well, I got out of Georgia a few days later. Then, you know that I took my break. I did some research. Dilaudid can become addicting quickly. My body was reacting negatively to its withdrawal. I also found that to help, you can wean yourself off. I decided to try it. Everyday while I was home, I took a little and tried to get it smaller. But suddenly, the withdrawal symptoms were catching up with me, and the doses quit going down as much. A few days later, they weren't going down at all, and a few days after that, I upped it a bit. Things have been spiraling since. Then, last night I started getting flashbacks, and I wanted to escape. I filled the needle too much." Reid finished sobbing. "I'm sorry."

Hotch and Gideon were at a loss. What could they say? They had never, and thought they would never, have to deal with a situation like this.

"We are too." Gideon finally uttered.

"What for?"

"Not seeing it. We could have helped you a lot sooner than this."

"Gideon, it's not your fault. I took them. I knew what they could do. I never thought that I would have sunk as low as I have in the last few weeks, but I still knew."

"Reid, how did you hide it?" Hotch asked struggling to stay calm.

"I took it right before I went to sleep, so by the time I woke up the effects were over. I tried to not use them on a case, but I couldn't handle it this time." Reid answered. He purposefully left out the part about Walgreens. He was guilty for that, not the pharmacist.

The three of them were silent for a few minutes.

"Reid, I, I have to…" Hotch began to say.

Reid wiped his eyes. "My badge is in my bag."

Hotch slowly went over and grabbed it. No matter how angry he was, he hated taking it. "Reid, we'll help you anyway we can." Hotch added.

Reid nodded but it didn't look sincere.

"Reid, the others don't know yet." Gideon continued.

"Why not?"

"We didn't think it would be best to tell them."

Fear grew inside Reid when he realized what Gideon was saying.

"I don't know if I'm ready to tell them." Reid stammered.

"Reid, the others and I are going back to Quantico at noon. They won't get to see you for some time. They want to talk to you." Hotch gently told him.

Reid thought about it for a minute. In his heart, he knew Hotch was right. He wanted to talk to them too. There would be no use hiding this from them now. Besides, they would all be angry if someone else told them something like this. But, he could barely admit to himself that he had a problem; could he really face Morgan, JJ and Emily and tell them?

That question was answered for him. The nurse came back to inform Reid that he would get to go back to a normal room now. Hotch got the room number and went back in the direction that he and Gideon had come from. Reid could feel himself trembling again.

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"Finally!" Morgan nearly yelled when Hotch returned. They stood up without being told what was happening.

"Guys, you-"

"Hotch, we're going to see him." Morgan said firmly.

Hotch looked at their faces. Morgan was angry, and scared. JJ's mirrored his other than not being angry. However, Emily looked concerned, and confused. No matter what, they were all adamant. Hotch knew there was no reason to fight. He led them through the wings and hallways.

----------

When Gideon saw the others enter, he gave Reid one last squeeze of the shoulder. Reid was obviously scared, but Gideon had faith in him. He knew that Reid didn't want Gideon there to hear it all again, so he met up with Hotch outside the door.

"He requested rehab." Gideon stated quietly. The door was left open so they could see JJ nearly tackle Reid with a hug.

"What?"

"Reid said he wants to go to rehab."

"Is that a good or bad thing?"

"Good. Hotch, he wants to quit using."

"Will that make it any easier for him?" Hotch asked as he peered into the door. Reid had finally broken away.

"I'm afraid not. He never wanted to start. Reid has demons."

"Don't we all?"

Gideon knew the answer. He and Hotch were silent for a few minutes.

"Jason, I still can't figure it out. How did we not see it? We're profilers! We are the people who are supposed to be able to look at a person and know their life"

"I'm starting to think that Kristy was right on this one. She figured out that Reid was on drugs, how I don't know. But she also knew why we were clueless."

"Because it's Reid?"

"No. Because we were blinded by trust." Tears started running down Reid's face again. Hotch and Gideon saw the looks on the others' faces. Shock, anger, confusion, fear, sadness, it was all flying through that very small room.

"Hotch, we weren't looking for this. He passed the eval when he came back. We had no reason to think otherwise. In this line of work, we all get our wounds. We learn to heal them mostly on our own. We trust that if we can't handle them, we can lean on others. We all trusted Reid and thought that he would come to us if he needed us."

"It doesn't feel right to blame him."

"Don't think about blame. Blame causes anger. Anger has never resolved anything."

"Maybe so, but I can't help but feel somewhat responsible."

"Hotch, don't. It won't help anything. Right now, it will be your main job to make sure that you guys get home okay and to keep them together. We're all hurting from something. They're going to feel responsible too. Tell them as many times as you have to, they didn't cause this. Every one of us is going to have to recover from this and the blame-game will only make it worse. We'll make it. Reid will make it."

JJ looked ready to faint; Morgan was shaking his head. Emily just stood there with her mouth open. Noticing the time, Gideon motioned that they go in there and try to help.

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Reid stared out the car window. The last 96 hours had been hell for him.

The others left on Saturday with lots of tears. After shocking them all pretty well with his secret, they had come back quite well. Never had Reid felt so much support and care in one room. While this would have embarrassed him on any other occasion, he accepted it.

Kristy came by later. She was leaving the hospital and wanted to say good-bye and thank you to Reid. He got her to tell him how she had figured it out. Apparently, the same situation where she saw people drink but never did it herself applied to drugs. She knew that Reid's clumsiness on the first day he met her was actually dizziness. She had seen JJ step on Reid's toe. She had seen people use heroin, and she had seen them use it in-between their toes. When Emily told her that he had been drugged with a heroin like substance, it was too much coincidence to ignore it.

After she left, everything seemed to slow down. However, it was only quiet for a few more hours. Reid started to get a fever, and then he began to puke again. Sometimes, he could barely stop shaking. Other times, he was sweating like crazy. And because he couldn't sleep, he was never out of emotional and physical agony.

The second day of it was the worst. His symptoms were intensifying, and Reid broke down. He got desperate and begged Gideon to give the drugs back. When Gideon tried to reason with him, Reid became angry. Never had Reid become extremely angry with Gideon, but that day, he almost hurt him. He had never felt so desperate, sick, helpless, and alone. After a few hours, Gideon calmed him down, but things were still tense. Reid cringed at this memory.

Things finally started to get better over the next day. The symptoms went down, and Reid began to feel more normal than he had recently. By the evening of the third day, the test results came back. The Dilaudid had moved out of his system for the most part. The doctor cleared him to leave.

To say Reid was nervous didn't even cover it. He had been jittery the entire plane ride. Unfortunately, his body was still recovering, and he had thrown up again on the plane. Other than that, everything had been going fairly smooth. They had stopped at his apartment first. Gideon assured Reid that everything would be taken care of while he was away.

'Away. Sounds like I'm going on a trip.' Reid had thought angrily to himself. 'Not to rehab.' Reid was most mad at himself. He had asked himself the same questions over and over for the last few weeks. Why did he do it? What compelled him to take the drugs?

At that moment, he was in a car with Gideon. They were headed for the Hillcrest Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, which was going to be Reid's new home. Reid assumed Hotch had set up the connections; usually it took longer than a few days to get in.

"Reid, why do you want to go to rehab?" Gideon asked suddenly.

"Because, I don't think I can take care of this with therapy alone." Reid answered after a minute. "I thought I had detoxed when I came home from Georgia. Gideon, I'm scared of what I'll do if I'm alone. I couldn't handle the pain so I used drugs. I may have taken them when I wasn't in my right mind, but I used them when I was. I don't trust myself anymore." Reid replied quietly.

Gideon let it rest there.

"We're here."

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An hour later, Reid was alone with Gideon again. Only this time, they were in his new room.

"You gonna be okay?" Gideon asked nervously after a minute.

Reid nodded.

"Reid, we're all here for you. Don't hesitate to call if you ever need anything."

"I know."

"And, Reid, you're going to make it through this." Gideon assured Reid as he embraced him.

A minute later, Reid was alone again. It was the first time in nearly six weeks that he was alone, and he wasn't scared of himself. Gideon's words gave him hope as well as the team's support. He was going to come back from this.

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A/N: Okay, only a little bit left! Wow, it's been six weeks! Can you say holy crap?

Okay, after reading this chapter, you might be questioning my sanity or my heart. However, I would like to leave you with a small list of things I love:

1. Criminal Minds (Of course!)

2. Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid (Hot, smart guy; we don't have enough)

3. Happy endings (Who doesn't?)

Now, I know you're supposed to pretty much end your story and the epilogue is really just a bit more closure. Well, I'm not normal so my ending isn't normal. The story is not over until I give you the epilogue, which all Reid/JJ fans should be excited for because I am planning great interaction. But go ahead and review this chapter! The more the better, trust me when I say that!


	14. Epilouge Chapter 14

A/N: Here it is, the ending to my long story. I hope you've enjoyed it as much I have. I also thank you so much for the support and reviews I have received from you guys. I don't own Criminal Minds, but with people like you guys, it makes it that much better. And I would like to thank the little people, just because.

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JJ was walking around in her kitchen. It was very late. The team had just returned from Oklahoma City where a serial killer was going around murdering prostitutes. It took them a few days, but it had been a relatively short case. It had only been their third since their surprise break from Hotch. She had used that time to find a therapist, and already she was doing better. Her nightmares had severely lessened, and JJ felt she had been dealing quite well with everything.

She was tired, but she wanted to get caught up with everything. She had already checked her email and listened to her phone messages, but now she was going through the old fashioned mail.

"Junk, bill, bill, junk, ohh, this looks like a good ad." JJ muttered to herself. The next letter made her gasp though.

JJ stared at it for a few minutes. It was harmless. Written on the front was simply her address. There was no return address, but she didn't need that. She knew who this was from. She could recognize that handwriting any day.

JJ was scared to open it. It had been four weeks since anyone had last talked to Reid. Hotch went back a few days after Gideon dropped him off to check up on him. Before he left, Reid asked that he not be visited again until he asked. He said he needed to figure some things out, and he didn't feel up to seeing anyone else.

Everyone had gladly respected this. They didn't know what else to do. JJ still couldn't believe what Reid had told them. She never thought he could be using drugs. He was too… what? Innocent? Carefree?

Hotch had talked to everyone on the plane. JJ thought he was crazy when he said that they were wrong to blame themselves. As he put it, they weren't looking for it. They wouldn't have seen it. JJ spent a few days beating herself up, but she realized that Hotch was right. Even if she knew something of this magnitude was wrong with Reid, she wouldn't have thought drugs. Never in her wildest dreams would this have been her guess.

It had taken the rest of the team time to heal as well as it had hit everyone pretty hard. They weren't over it, not yet, but they were getting there. JJ had noticed that after they came back from the break, everyone seemed better when they were by themselves. However, that changed the minute that they had to go into the conference and Reid's voice was missed.

The pain was still there. And it wasn't going to go away for a long time because they all knew what came next; the replacement. They knew Hotch wouldn't agree for the new person until they were ready, but it was going to be sometime soon. Without Reid, the team was weaker. They could still function and do their job, but another person was soon going to be needed.

JJ missed him terribly. Reid was supposed to have been with her on the plane back tonight playing gin and laughing. It hurt her to think that he was never going to be back. Of course, she was going to see him again. She was going to make sure of that. However, things were never going to be the same.

JJ opened the letter as if it were a bomb. It was short and simple. She quickly scanned the first few lines. They were the usual pleasantries exchanged in letters, but the second paragraph caught her attention.

'I was wondering if you would come visit me. I would like to see you and talk to you. If you don't want to come I understand, but please think about it.'

JJ sat there and read those lines over and over. Reid wanted to see her. Her, not Gideon, Hotch, or Morgan. Her. They would have said something if they had seen Reid. If he had wanted to truly see them, surely he would have let them say something.

JJ scanned the rest of the short letter. He asked her to come the 14th, which happened to be the next day. She set the letter down.

'What would he want to talk to me about? What's going on?'

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"How may I help you ma'am?"

JJ was standing at the sign desk of the rehab center that Reid was staying at. She was jittery. After reading his letter, JJ had been excited to see Reid. Now, she was nervous. The last time she saw Reid, he had told her that he was taking drugs. What did he want to talk about now?

"I'm here to see Spencer Reid."

"Okay, follow me please."

They hadn't dealt with too many cases where they had to come to rehab centers and that fact that it was Reid added a whole other level of weirdness. The building didn't look like a hospital. It was more like a, well, JJ didn't know what. People were everywhere. JJ was surprised at how many of them looked normal.

'Like Reid.' She thought bitterly. Finally, the nurse stopped in a lounge area. JJ spotted him immediately. He was reading a book, no surprise, but he didn't look like the last time she saw him. The circles under his eyes had disappeared, he was gaining needed weight, and his demeanor seemed better.

"Spencer, you have a visitor."

Reid immediately snapped his head up.

"JJ!"

JJ never thought a hug could feel so good. She didn't realized just how much she missed his arms, his voice, his smell, just him.

"Spence!"

"How are you?" He asked after he let go a minute later.

"Fine, but I should be asking you that."

"I'm good. Let's go to my room." Reid replied escorting her out.

When they entered his room, he ushered her onto the bed while he took the chair across from it. Being alone with him really got JJ nervous.

'Come on. You've been alone with Reid millions of times before. It's still him. He's still the man you want to be more than friends with.' JJ reminded herself.

"How have things been at the BAU?"

"Fine. It's not the same without you though. Reid, seriously, how have you been doing here? What have you been doing here?"

"JJ, I'm doing fine. Everyone has been really good to me. And, well, the majority of the time, it's therapy. Group, private, some form everyday. It's amazing some of the stories these people have. Only a few follow the drug addict stereotype." Reid trailed off. He was silent for a minute. "Hopefully, I'll be out by next week."

"Really? That's great!" JJ replied smiling.

"Yeah. I'll still be going to Narcotic's Anonymous meetings for a while afterward, but at least I'll be home. Ironic isn't it?"

"What?"

"That I'm going to NA, just like Tobias." Reid replied sadly.

"Spence, this is different."

"Is it? I mean, Tobias wanted to escape his father, so he took drugs. I took drugs because I wanted to escape painful memories."

"But Reid, you're not Tobias. First off, you're one person with one mind. And, you haven't killed anyone, and you're a good person. Plus, Tobias never quit using. You have."

Reid looked JJ square in the eye. She saw tears coming into his eyes.

"Thanks. JJ, thanks for coming. I mean, I screwed up, and you really didn't need to come-"

"Spence, I'm happy to be here. We're worried about you, and we miss you."

"I miss you guys too. I was going to wait until I got out to start seeing you guys again, but I wanted to see you sooner than that. I've spent the last few weeks trying to sort things out with me. Now, I have to sort some things out with you guys. I'll be lucky if it all works out, I mean, I was such a jerk to Emily. I wouldn't blame her if she never speaks to me again."

JJ felt her insides twinge. Reid was wrong on that. She figured that Emily felt guilty over her anger at Reid, so to compensate, she went with JJ every few days to Reid's apartment to check on things with her.

"This is really going to screw things up when I get back."

'Get back? What the…'

"You're….you're coming back? Didn't, didn't Hotch take your badge when we left?" JJ asked timidly.

Reid stared at her quizzically for a moment before standing up and going over to the little dresser in the corner. He pulled out something and brought it over to JJ. Sure enough, it was an FBI badge. But it was Reid's.

"Hotch came to talk to me a few days after I was admitted."

"I know."

"He gave it back."

"What? That doesn't-"

"Sound like Hotch, I know. I thought he was going to yell and lecture for hours about how I went against the core values of the FBI, that sort of stuff. Instead, he said I could return."

"Why? I mean, the FBI is against drugs. That's all they talk about at basic training." JJ reminded him, remembering her days at the academy.

"Yeah. Hotch said that after he went home, he started looking into some of the applications of the new people. According to him, he didn't think anyone was up to it." Reid said with amazement clearly in his voice. "He wanted me to come back, when I was ready of course."

"But, the Dilaudid, the FBI wouldn't allow for it."

"Hotch reviewed the manuals. According to them, the FBI doesn't allow illegal drugs. As Hotch put it, Dilaudid is legal."

JJ's mouth dropped.

"That…I just can't believe it. Wait, no. I can."

Reid stared at her. He had nearly fainted when Hotch had said that.

"Hotch was a lawyer at one time. All lawyers know how to look for loopholes." JJ explained with a smile. "But, you get to come back, and be part of the team again?" She continued excited.

"Well, according to the manuals, since Dilaudid is legal, I was to be disciplined for my actions, and the decision goes to the team leader. Hotch said that I could come back as long as I followed a set of guidelines that he made."

"Like…?"

"Well, obviously, if something like this happened again, there was no way I was coming back. I can't come back until I'm cleared by the FBI's shrink, and Hotch said he is evaluating me as well. I'll be on probation for who knows how long. Hotch only said as long as it takes. But I don't care. I'll stay on probation as long as I have to." Reid said adamantly. He was silent for a moment.

"It's terrible that it took me this much to realize how much losing this job meant. If Hotch hadn't come, I don't think I would have made it this far. Giving me back my badge gave me hope. I mean, I knew that if rehab was fun there would be more drug addicts. But those first few days were agony, more than I had expected. I had detoxed for the most part, but I was still in pain. There just didn't seem to be any reason to get better. I mean, what was going to happen when I got out? There was no job to go back to, no family to go back to. Starting over was going to be difficult. It was almost enough to make me want to use it again."

JJ was shocked to hear Reid talk like this. When had he morphed into this sort of person?

"But then Hotch came. And he gave me a reason to get better. I doubt I would even have a chance of going home in a week if he hadn't come." Reid said sadly.

JJ was silent. She couldn't believe it. Emotions and thoughts were racing through her head.

'Reid's coming back! Reid's coming back! Why aren't I happier?'

"JJ, you okay? Why haven't you said anything?"

"I'm fine Reid. Just shocked, I guess. I mean, we really thought you would never be back. No offense, or anything. I mean, we really want you back, but we thought it wouldn't happen-"

"JJ, I get it. But, it feels like something else is bothering you. What's up?"

"Nothing Reid. Well, I guess, it's just… There's something I wanted to tell you. Something I've wanted to say since we were in South Dakota, and I don't know if I should."

"JJ, it's okay." Reid came over and grabbed her hand. JJ looked into Reid's eyes. What she saw saddened her. Reid was expecting her to yell at him or be angry with him. Unfortunately, JJ wasn't so sure she wasn't.

The terrible feelings she'd had over the last few weeks about Reid's actions were coming back. She had tried to keep them at bay, and this was the worst time possible for them to appear.

"JJ, I would really like us to someday to get past this. If you don't say it, we won't be able to."

Those last few words scared JJ, enough to make her sure of what she wanted to say. She let go of Reid's hand.

"Did you know that it was me who found you?"

"No. They only said someone on my team found me. Why?"

"That scared me so much." JJ said. She wasn't really listening to what Reid had said after no. "I mean, you weren't breathing. The doctors and nurses just started running in and they pushed me out of the way, but I barely noticed it. All I saw was you. Then I started to realize how I would handle it if you weren't here. I thought that I had dealt with all of this when we were in Georgia. I mean, there, we saw you get CPR, and you almost died there too. But that night I decided I was going to tell you how I really felt Reid.

"But, then, Gideon started acting funny. And Hotch started acting funny. I only wanted to know if you were okay. I should have figured something was up. Then I got to see you. You told us that you stole drugs and were using them." The anger was really rising now. "You passed out from drugs Reid. I could barely understand that. I mean, you, you…"

"Overdosed" Reid filled in quietly. JJ nodded her head furiously.

"You almost killed yourself Reid." JJ bellowed. The anger at him for being so stupid had been getting to her for weeks. It wasn't Reid, not her Spence.

"I know JJ." Reid said quietly. "And, if you can't forgive me for it, I'll understand. If you don't want anything to do with me, I'll understand."

That statement stopped her anger.

"Reid, what makes you think that I wouldn't forgive you, or that I wouldn't want anything to do with you?'' JJ questioned softly.

"You still haven't said what you were going to tell me that night. I have a feeling that it's changed since we got back."

JJ was silent for a moment. He was half-right. She hadn't told him what she wanted to say. But, had it changed since they got back?

"Reid," JJ began slowly, "I was going to tell you how much I cared for you. I was going to tell you how much I liked you, and that I wanted to see if we could try going out again."

"And now?"

JJ was silent for a moment. In that moment, she made her decision. She went back to Reid, took both his heads into hers, and looked him in the eye.

"Spence, I am still angry with you over what you did. However, I will forgive you for it, and I still care for you. I also still want to try our relationship again. Being here, talking to you, it reminded me of something."

"What?"

"That you're still Reid. After you told us, I've had this thought in my head that you had changed, you weren't the same man that I cared about."

"But…?"

"Dilaudid can't change who you are, and because of that, I still care about you. And, someday in the near future, Spencer Reid, would you want to try going out again?"

Reid knew that at moment like this, he shouldn't have had thoughts of another woman in his head. However, in the minute it took him to formulate his response to JJ's surprising question, all Reid could think about was what Kristy had said. "Actions speak louder than words, Mr. Reid."

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When JJ was later telling the team about her meeting with Reid, she never told them about the last thing she and Reid discussed. She told them about how well he was doing, how he was going to soon be out, how he was sorry, and how she thought things were going to be normal again someday, but she never did mention that Reid accepted her invitation by kissing her.

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FIN

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Final A/N: Okay, for those of you who wanted Reid to not go back, I'm sorry, but I couldn't do it. I tried fathoming the BAU without Reid, and I couldn't see it so I sent him back. I hope all the Reid/JJ dialogue seemed realistic, and I hope that the ending was at least cute, and not too mushy. Jeepers, I just hope it was okay! I don't know if it is, but hey, if you review, then I will!


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